


The Dark of Night

by HarrietHopkirk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/M, Mystery, Next Generation, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarrietHopkirk/pseuds/HarrietHopkirk
Summary: Scorpius is destitute, left with a destructive family and memories of the night when everything went wrong. Albus is alone, quietly observing, harbouring secrets. Elodie is indifferent, flitting from life to life, rejecting and reforming everyone. Rose... Rose is perfect. A mixture of loathing and longing pulls them into the shadows, and they are all terrified. They are all terrified of the dark.





	1. I

The Knight Bus swerved dangerously through the villages of Wiltshire, the Muggle cars and lampposts were jumping out of the way. The passengers inside lay asleep in their beds as midnight approached, and the ones who remained conscious swayed violently as the bus turned corners and shot down country lanes.

Stan Shunpike leaned against the driver's cubicle, pressing his glasses further up his nose as he examined the Daily Prophet. His ears were still protruding and large, and a few pimples were still etched upon his face. He glanced at the passengers in the bus before flipping the pages of his newspaper and continuing to read.

_Reports from the Auror office conclude disgraced ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy has disappeared. The new patriarch of the now-dishonored Malfoy family was last seen leaving his office on the eve of the St Mungo's Gala. He was scheduled to visit his ill wife in the hospital after work before returning home to his country manor._

A young man leaned against the bus window, his head was pressed against the cool glass. His eyes searched the houses that sped past as the landscape grew steadily more familiar. Quaint country cottages and rolling countryside replaced monstrous tower blocks and streams of traffic jams. He would be home soon.

A beautiful girl was leaning her head against the young man's shoulder, her long blonde hair spilling over his shirt. Stan sniffed, and peered down at them, noting the closeness of their shoulders, the slight touching of their knees. One of the girl's hands was lying gently on the man's thigh. The bus skidded over a bump in the road, and the girl stirred momentarily. The young man gazed down at her as she moved further towards him, into his warmth. Stan smirked. How touching.

_Reporters attempted to question Malfoy's son, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy during his summer holidays, but the heir to the Malfoy estate spent the summer travelling in Asia when his father disappeared. Malfoy's mother made no comment as she visited her shamed husband in Azkaban._

Pictures. 

Scorpius alone. Scorpius with his mother. A younger Scorpius with shorter, blonder hair and rosy red cheeks, standing tall and proud with his father. 

Stan grimaced. The Malfoys. As always when he heard that name, his mind flashed to a vision of a darkened room, a silver-decorated cane and a cold voice that hissed _"imperio"._

Stan looked up from the newsprint, to see a very elderly Ernie gaping a toothless grin and gesturing to a map near his steering wheel. They were approaching the heart of Wiltshire and that meant one passenger was about to depart.

"Mr. Malfoy, sir. We are almost there," the conductor said casually, his eyes returning to the news story.

Malfoy nodded in reply. He leaned over to shake the girl gently awake. She did so, and Stan gaped quickly at the striking beauty of her pristine porcelain features: the long flowing hair and the startling blue eyes. The young Malfoy slid his bag out from under his seat and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, before running a hand through his hair which fell effortlessly over his eyes. 

As the bus skid to a halt, the girl stumbled slightly, and he turned quickly to support her, his hand resting at her elbow as he picked up her bag. She quickly pulled her arm out of his grasp and snatched the bag away from him, her eyes glaring and cold as they stared at the blond boy. Stan frowned.

Malfoy slung his bag over his shoulder and pressed a galleon into the conductor's hand.

"Thank you, sir. Have a good night, sir."

_With dwindling money resources and a dilapidated estate, could Draco Malfoy be avoiding debt collectors by disappearing off the face of the earth? Sources close to Mr. Malfoy revealed that he was 'struggling financially'. While some reporters say that Malfoy left of his own accord, others believe anti-Voldemort protestors from the Second Wizarding War could have kidnapped him._

Nodding again, the young man stepped into the cold night. The girl joined him shortly afterwards, but as she walked off the bus, her foot sank into a puddle. Dark brown water crept all the way up to her ankle, and she let out a whispered swear word. This time, the boy didn’t help her. He simply stood and looked around the dark street for a sign of life. Stan watched him for a moment, before signaling to Ernie and closing the door to the bus.

_Aurors are calling anyone with information with Mr. Malfoy's disappearance to contact the Ministry immediately. Astoria Malfoy née Greengrass is now making her recovery at the Wiltshire mansion and her son, Scorpius, is scheduled to return home next week. Any information regarding his whereabouts would also be appreciated._

The young couple was left alone in the cold night, a light drizzling rain settling into their hair and clothes. Readjusting his bag, the boy set off down the path.

It was overgrown and uneven; weeds and thorns crawling their way out into the centre of the path, and the visitors weaved their way through the undergrowth towards the entrance to the estate. The gates still stood there, despite the many years of wear and wind. Pressing his hands against the cold metal, the young man opened them gently, the rust causing them to creak and grate. The sound echoed eerily around the open countryside, but he persisted, pushing the gates wide apart and striding up the driveway.

“Scorpius,” the girl whispered angrily. He ignored her.

The mansion stood tall and imposing, just as it always had done. Ivy crept silently up the stonework, winding around the mullion windows, giving the old house a sense of decay and disrepair. Tiles were missing from its roof, and scattered around the courtyard. As the young man approached, the whole manor seemed to creak and crumble in front of him, as if it were some living being, slowly being strangled by weeds and overgrown vines. It had been this since the war, since Lucius Malfoy had been arrested, and the pureblood society become outdated and mundane. Like the house, the Malfoy name had collapsed around the family and the whole magical world.

The young girl followed instinctively, pulling her thin cardigan closer around her, wishing she had brought something more substantial. The house was just as she had imagined it to be. She could picture Scorpius living somewhere like this, with his proud, aloof father and his coldly beautiful mother. The dark windows were like eyes, peering down at her, just as Scorpius’ father had done all those years ago. She hurried quickly to keep up with the blond boy as he approached the front of the house.

Dumping his bag on the ground in front of the door, the visitor stared up at his apparent home. He had not been here for a long time, and he would be returning to Hogwarts in the morning.

“Scorpius,” she tried again, but still he didn’t listen.

The knock rang out into the air, and he thought the ancient wood might break with the strain. It opened slowly, and with great effort.

"Ah! Master Scorpius!"

Scorpius Malfoy entered the house, shedding his jacket from his shoulders and hanging it on an old coat hook. A small and wizened house elf reached up to take his bag, and placed at the bottom of the grand staircase.

"Will you be staying tonight, sir?"

“Yes. And so will my…” he paused, his eyes flicking to the young girl still standing in the doorway. “She will also be staying.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll make up the spare bedroom.”

“I don’t want to go to any trouble,” the girl said kindly, finally stepping out of the rain and into the hall. Scorpius raised his eyebrows, disbelief plastered all over his face. All she had done was cause trouble.

“It’s nothing, miss. Just a house elf doing his duty, miss.”

Scorpius walked towards the fireplace and warmed his hands against the flames. The shadows flickered dangerously around the entrance hall. It was cold and the many ornaments, portraits and antiques were smeared with a thick layer of dust. A sense of senescence had surrounded the old manor and had settled on everything, just like the dust.

"The mistress is upstairs, Master Scorpius, if you so wish to see her, sir."

“Very well,” he answered tiredly, rubbing his eyes, “see that Elodie gets some food, and then show her upstairs.”

“Of course, sir,” the house elf replied.

Scorpius climbed the stairs quickly, his footsteps muffled by the dust. He paused midway, as if contemplating something. The girl looked up expectantly.

“Oh and elf… tell her not to touch anything.”

He continued up the stairs. The balustrades were missing, and the old wood groaned dangerously. When he had reached the landing, he paused outside the door to his mother' room. The corridor was dark and silent. Bracing himself for what lay inside, he twisted the handle gently, the door hinges creaking as he did so.

The room was dingy, and held an air of dwindling grandness. Light danced eerily from several oil lanterns, while the curtains of the gigantic four-poster were ragged and moth-eaten. The room smelt of sickness and disease with a hint of something floral, as if trying to cover up the affliction. 

The dust had found its way into this room too, covering the mirrors and the furniture like an infection. The moonlight filtered through the tall windows.

Scorpius entered silently, shutting the door with a faint click.

"Is that you, Draco?"

Astoria Malfoy stood against the window and against the moonlight, her silhouette tall and dignified. Scorpius walked towards her slowly, taking in her appearance. She was wearing a sophisticated green gown, and her dark hair was pinned in an elegant knot at the back of her head. Diamonds were glittering on her fingers and thin wrists, glinting in the moonlight. She had a manner of gracefulness that enchanted people, and her beauty was renowned.

"No, Mother. It's Scorpius."

She turned to face him, smiling down at her only son. Now he was closer to her, Scorpius could see the layer of sweat that covered of her forehead, the slight shake of her hands as she straightened his collar.

"Where have you been, Scorpius? I was getting worried about you," she asked fondly, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. Her skin was ice cold.

"I have been around, Mother," he answered, "you just haven't seen me."

Astoria turned away from her son, and perched delicately on the stool in front of her dressing table. The dust distorted her reflection as she picked up her perfume bottle and began to spray herself with her definitive scent.

"You always liked roses, Mother," Scorpius noted quietly, and his mother laughed. It was a tinkling, feminine laugh that reminded Scorpius of the years spent at the manor during his childhood.

"I have missed you, my darling," she said. He had placed a hand on her shoulder, and she covered it with her own.

"Me too," Scorpius replied. Astoria smiled.

"And have you completed your school work?"

"Of course," he responded.

"And Elodie? Is she still in France?"

"She’s downstairs, Mother."

“Oh, how wonderful. You two do make the most perfect couple.”

Scorpius’ throat clenched and closed, and he swallowed several times.

_Will you marry me?_

“That’s right,” he said dully, “we’re regular little lovebirds.”

She laughed. It was soft and fragile and lasted only seconds.

"Did you find your father?" She asked after a weighty pause, looking at her son through the mirror, a powder brush clasped between her pale fingers.

Scorpius had not wanted to tell his mother. He had been going over in his mind how he would tell her, the right words he would use, what her reaction would be. She depended on him. He was now the sole heir to the Malfoy estate, the man of the house. 

Looking at his mother, frail and ill but still retaining her beautiful features, Scorpius saw a glimmer of hope in her dark eyes that he had lost long before. He had spent days looking for his father, knowing that the Aurors would turn his disappearance into something suspicious. A lot of people did not like Draco but his disappearance would not go unnoticed. Even the conductor on the bus had eyed him sheepishly as he departed.

"I did not, Mother," he said gently.

Her grip on his hand loosened. She looked down to her jewelry box. Her hands rummaged through it frantically, grasping at pearls and rubies and emeralds. They were remnants of a bygone era, when the Malfoys could afford to lavish themselves with only the best. Her hands were still shaking dangerously.

Scorpius stood behind his mother, his breath quickening nervously as he looked at the mess she had become. As she searched her dressing table in vain, her breath was rasping, strands of her hair were falling out and her fingers were bleeding from the sharp edges of the glittering stones. She began to cough violently, flecks of blood and spit flying from her mouth onto the mirror, mingling with the dust. The sound was dire, an appalling bark far too rough and dangerous to emerge from such a soft and pale throat. She stood, the stool falling backwards with sudden wave of movement, and began to walk clumsily towards the window. She almost fell, and clung to the long, velvet curtains of the bed. She clutched at them, pulling herself up to her full height.

Scorpius could just stand and watch her. He was desperate to help, to do something, but he could not. He found himself rooted to the spot as he watched his mother succumb to her illness. He was terrorized by how it had taken over her body.

She was still coughing as she found her way to the dresser near the window, and her dress ripped as she stumbled towards it. Astoria leant against it heavily until the coughs subsided, at last regaining her composure. Her slim, shaking fingers pinned her stray hairs back. Her white hands and the crimson blood that covered them contrasted horribly with the darkness of her hair. She picked up a handkerchief, and tenderly brushed the blood away from her fingers and from her mouth. She rearranged her rings and her torn gown.

"Mother, you must rest," Scorpius said to the silent room, his feet still anchored to the spot.

"You may leave now, Scorpius," she answered curtly, her back still turned from him. He glanced towards the mess that was her dressing table, the upturned jewelry box and open drawers.

"What were you looking for?" he asked again.

"Scorpius, please leave," she said.

"Mother..."

"Leave now. And only come back when you have found your father."

Scorpius noted the tone of power and control in her voice, and began to walk towards the door leading to the landing. Before he opened it, he turned to look at his mother one last time. She had rearranged the room, and it was now returned to its former state: drawers closed, the jewels neat and shining. It was like the moment between them had never happened. She was standing by the window, with an unmistakable air of dignity and refinement. The only indications that anything had taken place were the faint spots of blood on an old dusty mirror, which glowed crimson in the moonlight.

 

 

The door shut with a snap, and Scorpius leaned against it, resting his head on the wood. In his mind's eye, he pictured his ideal, perfect family. He would be loved and adored by two doting parents. His mother would be beautiful, and would greet him home from school with a hug, not a cold, awkward kiss on the cheek. His father would teach him how to shave and help him with his homework. He wouldn't disappear into thin air at the smallest sign of danger. There would even be a sibling. Someone he could share his two wonderful parents with.

Scorpius inhaled deeply, and the dust crept into his lungs. His mother's scent still lingered around him. The faint floral fragrance he had always associated with home was now sickly and overpowering, and he wanted to wash it off himself. He briefly remembered a time when he thought his mother to be the essence of dignity and nobility and he tried to recapture that feeling, the sense of blinding perfection that had seemed to surround her in the old days. He couldn’t. Instead he summoned, involuntarily, a sharper picture of an elegance that outstripped even that of his mother. 

Elodie Desmarais at the Yule Ball. Elodie Desmarais in the rain. Elodie Desmarais laughing. Elodie Desmarais in a thousand different poses.

_Will you marry me?_

He tried once again to force those images out of his mind, but it was too difficult, now that she was here. Even after everything, she had still come with him and stuck by him, albeit reluctantly. He opened his eyes, looking around him.

The eyes of generations of Malfoys peered back at him, their faces looming sinisterly out of the darkness. There was a portrait of his father and mother, Astoria sitting smartly while Draco stood behind her, his cold, pointed face more prominent than ever next to Astoria's full lips and captivating complexion. Scorpius supposed his father would expect him to join them up here, in this gallery of the malevolent and rapacious. He stared up at his parents, and they stared icily at something that he could not see.

Scorpius' reverie was broken by the muffled sounds of coughing from the other side of Astoria's bedroom door. He was tempted to return to her, to talk some sense into her, to tell her to rest or to see a healer. But now there was a physical barrier between them, and Scorpius was unable to break it. He finally relented to his own emotions. His parents were ungrateful and sadistic and if Scorpius stayed here any longer, he was scared he would be too. He didn't want to be corrupted by the Malfoy name.

Scorpius turned, and ran down the staircase. He almost ran over the old house elf, who was polishing fruitlessly at the bottom of the steps.

"Dinner's almost served, sir."

“Thank you.”

“Your lady friend is in the library, sir.”

“She’s not my friend.”

Scorpius grabbed his jacket and opened the front door. The rain was now hammering down, and lightning blazed in the distance. A rumble of thunder coincided with a painful groan from the old house. He zipped up his coat and stepped out into the night.

The rain beat down on Scorpius' head as he walked around the estate, as he stumbled over tree roots and sloshed his way through murky puddles. He pulled his Muggle cigarettes out of his pocket, fumbling with the awkward cardboard packet. There was one left. He attempted to light it, but the falling water extinguished it. He threw it to the ground and sat, defeated, on an iron bench near the entrance to the estate. Scorpius leant his head back, the rain cooling his face, seeping into his hair and creeping down the back of his neck.

He reminisced about the last time he was at the manor. It was Christmas last year, and the mansion was covered in snow, icicles glinting from the stonework and the courtyard buried by a thin layer of ice. He had returned home from the station with his father. Draco Malfoy had been cheerful and smiling, and although his face was slightly wrinkled and his hairline even more receded, he walked with a spring in his step. He was happy. Even though the whole magical world was against him, even though his own father was in Azkaban, he was still happy.

Father and son had walked up to the manor door, knocked twice, and the old house elf had opened it, welcoming them inside. Scorpius smiled as he remembered the decorations and the gigantic Christmas tree sitting in the corner of the hallway. He would never forget how beautiful his mother looked, gliding down the large staircase, diamonds glittering at her throat. There was no dust then, no broken furniture, no cobwebs. The house had been magnificent.

The rain beat down against the garden bench as Scorpius recalled about that night. After Scorpius had unpacked, dinner had been served. It was delicious as always, the colossal dining table laden with all types of food. But Scorpius couldn't recall what he had to eat, because his mind, on that night, had been focused on something more significant. It was the night his mother had her first attack.

Scorpius opened his eyes. He did not want to remember it. It was bad enough that it haunted him whenever he slept, so he didn't exactly feel like reliving it now. Not when he was conscious and could help it. The images of it still plagued his mind - the flecks of spit and blood, the hacking cough, the cold, aloof look on his father's face as his wife sank to her knees, her bejewelled hand clasping at her chest.

Because that night was also the night that everything went wrong.

The house elf had called the hospital, and Draco had apparated his wife to London, where she had examined by healers. They had fed her various potions, each of which proved ineffective. They tried different healing charms, but they could not determine what her illness was. They had called it a deterioration of the blood, caused by toxins. An impurity of the blood, they had said.

Scorpius curled his hand into a fist. His father did not like that. Scorpius and his father had returned home, Draco retiring at once into his study. There was no longer a spring in his step. Scorpius had not slept, instead spent hours pacing his room, throwing his possessions one by one at the wall in his anger. Anger at the healers for their inability to heal, anger at his father for his inability to love and most of all; his own inability to do anything about it.

Scorpius and his father did not speak at the breakfast the next morning, or at their visit to the hospital. The healers had said that they would keep her in for more observations. Scorpius, unable to stand the silence any longer, had disappeared into Diagon Alley. He only returned late that night, but his father didn't care. He never emerged from his study, and Scorpius had only seen him briefly during meal times, but he wouldn't eat. Part of Scorpius had wanted to believe that was a profound grieving for his wife's illness, but he knew it was just his father's incompetence.

Scorpius had not returned to the manor since that holiday, and after the shameful night at Elodie’s house, he spent most of his time at the Leaky Cauldron, working for his keep. He could not remember the sound of Draco's voice. Now he was back, back to find the father who had deserted them at the worst time.

He appreciated the quiet. 

Apart from the slight drumming of the rain and the occasional roll of thunder, there was silence. There was no rumble of traffic or screech of a car horn, no loud drunken Muggles. There had been plenty of those when he had been looking for his father. It also didn't compare with the stillness of the mansion, which was dead and strange. The silence out here was alive and breathing…

“Scorpius…”

And easily broken. Scorpius tried to retain the silence by succumbing to it and he did not reply to the beautiful girl standing next to him.

Elodie stared at the young man sitting on the bench. She looked down at him, her large blue eyes gazing at him, trying to decipher what he was thinking. She admired his good looks, his high cheekbones and strong jaw. She recalled a time, long ago, when she could study those features when he was sleeping, when she could reach out and touch them and she would feel his warm skin underneath her fingers. She looked at his grey eyes. They were older now, darker and more tired: great bags surrounded them like permanent shadows. They had been the same last year when he had appeared at her house unannounced, a bag flung over his shoulder and a small black box clasped in his hand.

Because that night was also the night that everything went wrong.

_Will you marry me?_


	2. II

The room was dark and cold. The moonlight illuminated the furniture eerily as Scorpius Malfoy lay flat on his back in his four-poster bed. He wasn't asleep, but his eyes were lightly shut and his breathing was heavy.

He couldn't sleep.

His bedroom was the room next to his mother's, and he couldn't stand the constant sounds of coughing from the other side of the wall. He knew she wouldn't be able to sleep because of it. She never slept. She spent all night wandering her room and the rest of the house, looking sorrowfully out of the windows, waiting for her husband. She was a ghost: rarely seen, pale, transparent and dead.

The old manor creaked loudly, the windows rattled their panes and the ancient stonework groaned against the wind. It could not sleep either.

Scorpius twisted and turned in his bed until the sheets began strangling him. It was too cold in the house and the fire would not light. His thoughts flitted between Elodie and his mother; his father and school. His hands bunched the material of the blankets, his knuckles turned white. His jaw clenched. He squeezed his eyes together tighter, trying to block out the moonlight so that sleep could finally engulf him. It would not. It would not be that merciful.

Ripping the tangled covers off his body, Scorpius swung his legs over the side of his bed. He held his head in his hands and listened to the dainty footsteps from the other side of the wall. Scorpius did not want to listen. It was as if he was intruding on her, eavesdropping, invading her privacy. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, ridding them of sleep.

He stood up, stretched his arms and walked over towards the window. Scorpius opened it, the cool breeze felt pleasant on his skin. An owl’s silhouette was against the moon, as he watched it swoop and dive in the night sky, carefree and relaxed. Scorpius was jealous.

The storm had calmed by now, brown and murky puddles branded the courtyard. There was a fresh scent, and Scorpius inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. Goosebumps erupted on his pale skin and he returned to his bed, the cold night finally getting to him. He laid still and shut his eyes firmly, trying once again to shut his brain down, trying once again to lose the battle against consciousness. It wouldn't work. Nothing would work.

He stood up again and paced around the room. He sat down on the bed again. He stood up again. He tried to relight the fire, but with his lack of wand, his efforts were futile. Scorpius Malfoy tried and tried and tried to sleep. He just wanted it all to shut down and for everything that happened that night to be a dream. That he could just wake up in the morning having found his father in London and his mother would be proud of him for returning Draco to his rightful place as head of the Malfoy household. Scorpius wished that when he woke up the incessant rain would stop falling and leaking its way into the ageing stonework of the manor, leaving it with a slight stench of damp and decay.

He flung the sheets away from him, sick with his inability to sleep. Pulling on a t-shirt, Scorpius stepped out into the dark corridor and crept down the paneled hallway. His door was opposite the grand staircase, and the landing outside overlooked the large entrance hall. The fire was dying down in the marble fireplace by the front door, the coals glowing orange in the darkness. The moonlight glinted off the crystal chandelier. The wind whispered.

Scorpius crept silently through the house, his footsteps light. Usually, he could have jumped, yelled and screamed and not worry about waking anyone up. His father was not here, his mother was physically unable to sleep and Scorpius himself had not slept properly since that night last Christmas.

Elodie was the only thing stopping him tearing down the hideous portraits from the walls, and pulling over the old suits of amour in his anger.

Scorpius paused at the door to her room, his knuckles resting close to the wood in preparation to knock. He tried to wonder why he was here, why he being drawn to her when all he needed was to be alone with his thoughts and possibly... possibly his own mother. He didn't know why he was there, standing so close to Elodie's door, why he was standing so close to the door of the girl who refused him so cruelly. He supposed the strange mixture of pain and pleasure he now associated with Elodie drew him here unconsciously, and now he was so near to her, he could feel it - that same agonizing pull that would always bring him back to her. It was that same pull that made Scorpius take her on his search for his father.

He lowered his hand, instead resting it against the cold brass of the door handle. He wasn't going to knock. It would be better it she wasn't awake, if she wasn't speaking, because then her voice wouldn't remind him of the time last Christmas as it did every time she spoke.

The moonlight was bright in the room, and it was much warmer, the dying embers of a fire apparent in the grate. Elodie was lying asleep in the bed, her pale skin luminescent in the dark and her blonde hair fanned out over the pillow.

Scorpius watched her sleep, perched on the ornate window seat.

He remembered the first time they met. It had been at a function that Scorpius' father had been required to go to. Scorpius had been six, and had been forced to wear a pair of dress robes. He remembered how they had cut into his neck, and how heavy and uncomfortable they were. Elodie was there too, but she looked radiant in her little blue gown and perfect blonde ringlets. Forced to 'play' together by their parents, the two children had sat down in a corner of the ballroom; surrounded by all the sweets they could lay their hands on. Together they had stuffed their faces until there was one left: a tiny little liquorice ring.

Scorpius smiled as he remembered holding it up to Elodie and through a mouthful of pumpkin pasty, asked her to marry him. She had giggled politely and then refused him. She had popped the ring into her mouth and got up to dance. Scorpius trailed his fingers through his hair. It's funny how history tends to repeat itself.

Will you marry me?

Looking at her now, asleep and dreaming, Scorpius could hardly believe that it was the same girl who had refused him all those years ago. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with a slim frame, long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was kind and she was clever. She was perfect.

Elodie moved gently in her sleep, the sheets and blankets around her rustling slightly with the movement.

Scorpius had imagined what it would be like when they would be married. His father and mother had always pushed it upon him to do the right thing, to propose to her when they left school. Astoria had given him the family jewel. He remembered getting down on one knee, the box grasped desperately in his hands, his voice cold and croaking. The ring had glinted, but it had never made her accept. It was too large and imposing, far too vulgar to sit upon a hand as dainty and soft as Elodie's. Scorpius had run from the room and from her house, and with the snow falling on the ground, he catapulted the small black box into the night.

But what if she had accepted? What if they had promised to spend the rest of their lives together?

Scorpius asked himself whether he would be able to leave her, just like his father did to his mother. Perhaps Draco's cowardliness was something he had inherited, like the Malfoy engagement ring or a receding hairline. 

Scorpius jumped, startled at the sound the fire made as the wood crackled and splattered.

Elodie's eyes fluttered open. She took in the dwindling fire, the grand velvet curtains and the sullen boy sitting on the window seat, his eyes downcast and heavy and his gaze unfocused. Elodie sat up, pulling the blankets up to her chin, so as to cover herself and retain her modesty. The rustling of the sheets made the young man turn his head to face her. He startled her. He was still beautiful.

"What are you doing here?"

"I didn't talk to you yesterday."

Elodie remembered the crunching of gravel and the rustling of leaves as she chased him through the garden, calling his name, the rain falling all around and him impermeable to her shouts.

"So you want to talk now?" Elodie said sarcastically, glancing at the grandfather clock, “it’s the middle of the night.”

“I know how much you enjoy your beauty sleep, but I couldn’t sleep and…”

“And what? The need to talk to me suddenly overcame you?”

“Yes.” His voice was quiet and soft, but laced with firmness: the prospect of a challenge.

The couple sat still: Scorpius cramped and uncomfortable on the small, ornate window seat and Elodie’s tiny frame was stranded in the centre of the majestic four-poster. The fire spat. A tiny gold ember flew from the flames and left a small dark hole on the rich oak flooring.

“Why?” Elodie asked him.

“What?”

“I know you don’t want to talk to me.”

“So you want to know why? Because being back in the family home makes me family nostalgic.”

Elodie laughed. It was short and spiteful and made Scorpius’ stomach shrink into non-existence. He suddenly felt the desire – an animalistic need – to hold her, to feel her skin beneath his fingers, to make her smile and make her laugh properly and wholly.

He also wanted to hurt her, to make her feel some of the ache like of that she had caused him. The painful, pleasurable pull was drawing him towards her yet again, and he didn’t know what it made him: a sadist or a masochist.

“You’re funny,” she said monotonously, her mouth stretched in a wide, unfriendly grimace.

“You love it.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Elodie shifted uncomfortably in the bed, and Scorpius tapped his fingernails against the wood. Both their minds flitted back to a time before that Christmas, before that night, before everything went wrong.

It had been a perfect day, Elodie remembered, her hair had looked just right, and she had been wearing her favorite dress. The sun was shining, making the Hogwarts grounds seem even more serene. She had been reading on a stone bench near the lake when he had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and whispered those three little words in her ear. It was like something out of a fairytale.

"I used to," she said.

It had been the day, Scorpius remembered, that he had never felt more exposed. He wished now that he could somehow turn back time and reel in the words that changed everything, and made everything that happened last Christmas hurt even more.

“Likewise,” he said.

As they both filtered back to the present and to the dark room in which they both sat, apart, they both noted that their situation couldn't have changed much more. Now there were no whispering sweet nothings or making wild declarations of love in the school grounds. There was, of course, the constant overhanging weight of the proposal and the rejection that followed, and in every single exchange the couple shared since that Christmas, its vast looming presence seemed to settle on their mind so that any conversation was riddled with anger and pain.

"Yes, well," Elodie continued, with a vague attempt at a smile, “like that wasn’t obvious enough already.”

“Catch on quick, don’t you?”

“Apparently not seeing as I still don’t know why you are creeping around my room in the early hours of the morning.”

“Like I said,” Scorpius replied, “I was feeling nostalgic.”

“If you really felt like reliving old memories then you wouldn’t be sitting there, would you?”

Her eyes flicked downwards towards the bed, then returned to him. A small, coy smile spread over her lips. Scorpius felt his knuckles turn white as he gripped the edge of the window seat. Moisture grew at his palms; his heart grew wild and pounded angrily against his chest, his nostrils swore off a scent of vanilla that had swept into the room, until its very essence became all he could sense; the fragrance of her.

“No,” he growled.

“Are you refusing me?”

“Karma’s a bitch, Elodie.”

And this was what they did. They flitted around the subject that pulled and prodded at their minds, never actually mentioning it to one another, but all the same they both knew that they were talking about it. In essence it was all they ever talked about anymore, even when they weren’t speaking, they conveyed it through their eyes, their movements: the meaning of a single glance or a single touch spoke volumes to them. It spoke volumes where words weren’t necessary.

Elodie turned and twisted her fingers over and over on her lap, trying to avoid the beautiful boy and his searing gaze. Even she didn’t understand why she was here, why she had agreed to come with him on his search to find his father, why she had returned to his house, why she was now sleeping under his roof. Elodie remembered the surprised stare Scorpius had given her when she had appeared at the station, a bag swung over her shoulder and a look of grim determination set upon her delicate features. It had only lasted a couple of seconds, obviously, before the two of them plunged into the darkness of the pain that now surrounded them and their faces had returned to a look of proud indifference. Perhaps that was why she had done it: perhaps spending the whole summer together would force them to talk about it, about what would happen next.

They barely spoke at school: she would see him turn quickly around corners when they met in corridors, they would sit at opposite ends of the classroom and ignore each other while in the common room. When they had talked, briefly to discuss some homework or whether they should tell their parents, it had been whispered and angry. She remembered the exact way his eyebrows knitted together, how they had stood so far apart that it was it difficult for her to hear him. They didn’t tell their parents in the end, deciding it was the best option: Scorpius’ parents were waiting for him to make a decent marriage into a well-bred, respected family. Elodie's family had been the same. His father had given him the ring. It was a shame he thought it would save them.

Elodie looked at him. He had stood up and turned his back on her, staring out of the window. His hands were hanging loosely and limply by his sides.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Elodie asked.

“You were the one who wanted to talk, remember?”

Silence again. He watched the rain thunder upon the window.

“Look, I’m sorry – ” she began, wanting to apologise for refusing him, for running away, for breaking his heart, “I’m sorry about your father.” She finished rather weakly. She couldn’t do it. It was easier to apologise to him when he wasn’t looking at her, when she could focus all her guilt on the back of his head rather than his light grey eyes. He didn’t turn around at her words.

“And your mother,” she continued, “I know she’s sick and if there is anything that I…”

Scorpius laughed.

“Anything you could do? I’m pretty sure you’ve done enough, Elodie.”

He still did not face her and instead he gazed out of the window, listening to the rain and to her soft, delicate breathing. His heart and head didn't match.

Elodie pulled herself out of the bed and walked towards Scorpius. She stood dangerously close to him - closer than she knew was right or appropriate. They stood, together but apart, facing the outside world. She reached out to touch him, her hand almost grasping at him - his shirt, his skin, his hair - but she thought better of it and her hand retreated.

"I'm sorry about us."

Scorpius' shoulder tensed. He had not been expecting her to be so close. 

"And whose fault is that?"

"Both of ours."

"You rejected me," he spat.

"You asked in the first place," she answered quickly and then watched as Scorpius threaded his fingers desperately through his hair. She walked around to face him, "did you really think that I would've accepted?"

"You said that you loved me," he replied, "I thought that was enough."

Elodie fell silent, her eyes suddenly downcast as she twisted the hem of her nightdress. She felt guilty and, for a second, she wanted to take back her refusal and all the pain she caused him. She wanted to pull him towards her and plant her lips on his. She wanted to repossess him. She wanted to able to walk hand-in-hand with him down the corridor or kiss him in the rain or finally be able to come clean to her parents. These feelings overpowered her momentarily before her heart and her head told her they were foolish. He was angry, she was angry: it would eventually prove too much and the two of them would break. 

Elodie paused. He just looked so beautiful standing there, his face bleak and haunting in the moonlight.

Scorpius stared.

"Obviously not," he finished, "great talk, Elodie. I'll see you in the morning."

He walked quickly away from her and towards the door, which he flung open dramatically. 

"Scorpius, we haven't finished yet," she replied angrily, following him out onto the dark corridor. It was bitterly cold outside of her room, and she was suddenly horribly aware of her short nightdress and bare legs. She pinched her toes together as her feet met the freezing floor.

"Scorpius... " She pleaded. He was already halfway down the hallway, "please just listen to me."

"Already tried that, El," he replied, opening the door to his room, "and all I got was some sub-par apology about my mother being ill."

"Scorpius... " she repeated, and this time he turned around and marched back towards her. Elodie gaped. He looked so different now, so different in the somber, dusky light of the corridor rather than in the soft, warm glow of her bedroom. His eyes were dark and powerful.

"I've heard all of what you have to say, Elodie. Maybe you should just leave."

"I am not leaving."

Scorpius reached out and grabbed her arm, his fingers grasping at her skin. The action was possessive and abusive and Elodie flinched, but not from the pain, but at the sudden contact. His skin on hers. They locked eyes for a long, arduous moment as the two of them recalled the last time they had touched. For Scorpius, it was the kiss they shared when he had arrived at Elodie's front door on that fateful winter night. For Elodie, whose memory of that night was patchy after the many times she had tried to force it out of her mind, their last moment was a couple of days before, when they had walked hand and hand down Diagon Alley. Neither of them could remember anything else that was significant: when they pretended in front of their parents, they never touched each other - not even a loose hand-holding or a casual arm around the shoulders. Scorpius' mother had obviously not noticed, being so detached from affection herself. Elodie's parents thought they were merely being reserved and refraining from public displays as a young, perfect pureblood couple should do.

His hand lingered on her arm for longer than it should have. 

"Why did you it?" Elodie whispered.

"My father was depressed. My mother was ill," he began, his voice shaking with sarcasm, "I thought that a marriage would be... beneficial."

Elodie stepped away from him, shaking her head.

"You were there. You loved me. You were pureblood," he said, his voice sneering and malicious, “you had everything.” 

Scorpius was trying to force some of the pain he felt back on her, to let her feel how he had felt since that night. The pleasure had passed - the briefing touching of her skin that had brought back so many memories - and now it was time for the pain... and she definitely deserved it.

“And now you have nothing,” she argued back, “your father’s gone, your mother’s about to die and now you don’t have me.”

There was a short moment when a dangerous flicker passed over Scorpius’ eyes, his head turning over so slightly towards the door to his mother’s room. His jaw clenched.

“Why did you come with me? If I had lost you then why did you help me look for my father?”

“I thought that… I thought that we could talk,” she said feebly. 

“And its turned out so brilliantly,” Scorpius answered sarcastically.

“What; just like your proposal?”

Silence filled the corridor. Elodie turned her head as she heard Scorpius’ mother coughing from behind a closed door. She looked towards him, her gaze flickering between him and the closed wooden door, and his eyes were downcast. He was ashamed.

“Maybe we should go downstairs or something,” she said quietly. Scorpius lifted his eyes to hers, one eyebrow cocked haughtily. 

“Just in case my mother hears our little spat?”

“Well she thinks that we are terribly in love.”

“I’d hate to ruin that perfect picture,” he said, but remained where he was, leaning nonchalantly against the hallway railing.

“Too late.”

Scorpius laughed: a cruel, mocking laugh that reminded Elodie too much of his father. Draco Malfoy had laughed like that. She could picture it vividly in her mind. It had been one of those dreadful formal occasions, and she remembered having to wear a pristine set of dress robes that were coloured a deep purple. They were heavy, unflattering and itchy. Scorpius had been sitting to her right, her mother to her left. Either someone had told a joke or he was laughing, once again, at some insecurity of Scorpius’. Elodie remembered the desperate way he had grasped at her hand under the table, and the loving way she never let go.

“Merlin, Malfoy… why do you have to be so bloody infuriating?”

“And we’ve returned to surnames, how touching.”

“I was just trying to be nice,” Elodie said bitterly, “I don’t want mummy to be ashamed of ickle Scorpy. Nothing says unworthy son quite like a rejected proposal. In fact,” she continued, “it’s probably why your dad left. He couldn’t live with the humiliation of having a deadbeat son and a dying wife.”

She knew her words hurt him. It was easy to tell. His eyes were nothing more than slits, and his hands gripped at the rail until his knuckles were pale and ghostly in the darkness. For a single, fleeting moment, she was scared. She was scared that she had pushed him too far, and that the reunion she was unconsciously hoping for - filled with roses and kisses in the rain and the shedding of clothes - was once again out of reach.

Elodie looked at him. She really looked at him, until her eyes hurt with the strain of staring at his elegant, defined features and her heart ached with the injustice she had forced upon him. And when the view in front of her changed, as Elodie watched his facial expression change from one of inexplicable rage to one of stoicism and mild amusement, she herself felt anger as she realized that he would never be broken.

Scorpius looked at her. He really looked at her, until he struggled to find anything that he could love anymore.

“I don’t know why I bothered with you,” he said. And then he was gone: both from her life and from the dark and dingy corridor in which they both stood.


	3. III

Elodie Desmarais first spotted her parents from the other side of the station.

She had been standing with Scorpius, encased in one of the fleeting moments in which they stood closer than several yards apart. If she had taken a few steps to her left, she would have been able to sense his scent: the mixture of spearmint and cigarette smoke that she had once loved, but now she found disgusting. His school trunk stood by his side. She could see her’s standing with her parents.

"I'm guessing we should go over," Scorpius said dismissively, shoving a worn paperback into his back pocket, "to your parents, I mean."

Elodie nodded, trying to ignore the disdainful looks of her classmates as they walked towards her parents. She had told her friends about her strange, unreliable relationship with them, and of her broken one with Scorpius.

Somehow, after his father's disappearance, the young pureblood couple had decided that telling their parents would simply make matters worse. Elodie's friends had assumed a picture of perfect surprise and condescension; their perfectly plucked eyebrows had risen, their perfectly glossed lips slightly agape, their perfectly filed nails drumming against the tabletop to avoid the awkward silence that followed Elodie's revelation.

They had not spoken about it, Genevieve merely commented on how her estranged aunt was trying to force her into the arms of a waiting pureblood gentleman, and how she did not mind as it meant she could summer in the south of France and wear the family jewels for the rest of her life.

Scorpius Malfoy could feel a line of sweat appear on his forehead. His fingers itched to open the new packet of Muggle cigarettes he had bought outside the station. He could feel the cardboard corner of the packet digging into his leg through his jeans pocket, tempting him. His gaze flittered from Elodie - looking cold and austere in her grey dress and black cardigan - to her parents. They smiled as Elodie approached them, and her mother enveloped her in a one-armed hug that made Scorpius' stomach clench uncomfortably. He no longer knew how to react to outwardly signs of fondness. Elodie's father kissed her on the cheek, commenting on how tall she was after a summer away from them.

The gestures would not strike anybody as overly affectionate, merely a mother and father greeting their daughter, but Scorpius felt a burning sense of jealously that made him want to tear his eyes away from their private moment, and instead look at the millions and millions of people who had seemingly flocked to the station to see their young ones safely onto the train. There were mothers crying. Young boys were recoiling away from them as they tried to kiss them goodbye, or remove the bit of dirt on their nose with a handkerchief. These loving moments played in front of the young blonde man, as he stood by his ex-girlfriend and her parents. They seemed like memories to him, being viciously played in front of his eyes like some sort of storybook from a nightmare childhood. And the images were taunting, provoking this overwhelming sense of jealously that overcame him.

He swore he could see Elodie's father flinch as they shook hands, probably because of the clamminess of his palm, and probably because of the slight possibility that Scorpius' mother was contagious and her illness was somehow infecting him through the bodily contact. Scorpius also tried to ignore the hideously fake smile Elodie's mother shot him as they exchanged pleasantries, instead deciding to focus on restraining himself from not running away.

"So, Malfoy," Elodie's father began, "did you enjoy your summer away? I heard you stayed in Paris for a couple of days, it is truly wonderful at this time of year, isn’t it?"

Scorpius swallowed, and his hand twitched dangerously close to his pocket where his cigarettes were hidden. He knew that Elodie's father was merely trying to avoid the subject of his disgraceful family: he had probably already triedpersuading Elodie to break off the relationship and find a richer, more respectful boyfriend before Scorpius dragged her down too.

It was too bad that he was too late.

"Yes, Scorpy," Elodie chimed in, her voice disgustingly sweet, "tell Daddy all about it."

She did something Scorpius didn't expect. She grasped tightly onto his wrist, so that her nails dugs into his skin and caused a sting of pain to shoot up his arm. The unanticipated action caught Scorpius by surprise, but to anyone else on the station - to Elodie's parents - it was merely a loving gesture shared between a young couple.

She let go after a couple of moments and her grip left tiny half-moon shaped marks on his skin.

"Paris was lovely," he answered smoothly, sliding his hand around her waist and pinching her side, until she yelped and glared up at him, "the museums and galleries were simply exquisite."

An awkward silence followed Scorpius' statement. Elodie's father bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, nodding, and her mother pursed her lips into another strained smile, and Scorpius remarked how alike they were.

"We went to visit Clémence," Elodie said quickly, "she's really enjoying Beauxbatons."

"That's fabulous!"

Another silence. Elodie's mother's smile was now creeping up around her ears and looked like she was out to eat children. Scorpius removed his hand from around Elodie and kept his hands behind his back.

"And Malfoy, have you decided what you are going to do once you graduate?"

"Probably just follow my father into the family business," Scorpius replied easily. The answer was imbedded in his mind and pulled out at family functions, along with how to respond to _'my, haven't you grown?'_ or _'it is a shame about your grandfather, he was a truly honorable man.'_ The slightly overused _'you and Elodie do make the world's most perfect couple'_ proved a bit more difficult to answer.

"Your father," Elodie's father said distractedly, "yes of course. Draco."

Scorpius nodded, trying to avoid making eye contact with the tall, intimidating man standing in front of him. His gaze fell on a dark haired young man sitting on a nearby bench. His face was hidden behind a newspaper.

A loud bell rang out around the station and the surrounding students flocked towards the scarlet train. Scorpius grabbed the handle of trunk eagerly, stepping as far away from Elodie as he could after shaking hands with her father. He mumbled some excuse about meeting his friends on the train and rushed to find an empty compartment, leaving Elodie standing alone to say goodbye to her parents.

Heaving his trunk onto a shelf, he sat down heavily on the leather seats, pulling his book out from his back pocket and finally lighting a much-needed cigarette. Scorpius closed his eyes as the nicotine seared through his brain and his bloodstream, causing his heart rate to increase and blood to flow rapidly away from his heart. He exhaled slowly; smoke spilling from his nostrils and mouth and disappearing through the open window, mingling with the steam that was clouding the platform.

Scorpius remembered having his first cigarette. It had had been the morning after the disgraceful night at Elodie's house, and he had not slept, instead spent the moonlit hours pacing around his room at the Leaky Cauldron. His eyes had been red and sore as he left the pub and stepped out into Muggle London, looking for anything to distract from what had happened the night before (a small part of him even hoped that his father would suddenly emerge from a seedy bar or an old second-hand bookshop). He lingered slightly on the pavement, his feet twitching with excitement at the prospect of this new adventure - of finally leaving his memories behind him - and his eyes flicked around the dirty street before him. A Muggle. Wrapped up in a scruffy, patched overcoat that stank of urine and alcohol, stumbled over to him and asked him for a 'light'. Scorpius had watched, with a look of unabashed curiosity, as the man then proceeded to screw a short paper stick into his mouth and fumble with a cardboard packet.

He remembered coughing and spluttering as he tried his first cigarette. Now, of course, he was a natural. Now, of course, he realised that they didn't save him from his memories, just like the engagement ring didn't save his family from ruin.

He held his cigarette between his lips and flicked to the current page in his book, his eyes flicking back and forth as they skimmed the paragraphs. It was a Muggle novel, and Scorpius smirked as he imagined the look on his father's face when he realised that he indulged in something that wasn't riddled with dark magic or Malfoy heritage.

"They'll turn your lungs black, you know."

Scorpius' eyes flicked upwards, only to find Elodie standing in the doorway, her face slightly flustered and her appearance generally ruffled. In defiance, he replaced the cigarette to his lips - his eyes never leaving hers - and took a long drag before returning to his book. He heard Elodie sigh exasperatedly, and he smirked.

"It was rude of you to run off like that. Mother thinks it's not gentlemanly."

He continued to ignore her.

"Daddy thought it was very rude."

Scorpius breathed out, the smoke spilling from his lips.

"He wants us to go to the St. Mungo's Gala together. Keep up appearances and everything."

He turned a page.

"Are you going to say anything?"

Scorpius looked at her, surprised to find her sitting so close to him on the worn leather seat. He took another drag from his cigarette and put his book down, leaning forward.

"What are you doing here?"

"Scorpius..."

"I lied to your father about Paris," he answered simply, leering at the incensed expression on Elodie's face before adding innocently, "what more do you want from me?"

"Just for you to be civil to my parents. Make conversation. Smile. Avoid looking like you want to run away every time we talk to them."

"You know me too well, Elodie," Scorpius answered nonchalantly. "I, however, don't know what you are doing here."

"What?"

"Here, in my compartment, invading my personal space. We're back at school now, so isn't it time for the ritual bitching to begin? I thought you would go meet up with Madeleine and Genevieve instead of hanging out with your deadbeat ex-boyfriend with his black lungs and unsuitable social manner."

"I was just..."

"About to leave?" Scorpius interrupted her. "I hope so."

He returned to his book. He had thought that after last night and the... the discussion they had, Elodie would have realised that they should just stay away from each other, and never ever try and 'talk' about anything, especially not the proposal. Scorpius tried to ignore her because he wasn't used to Elodie talking to him this freely. Perhaps - and Scorpius winced slightly at the thought - perhaps she thought that they had progressed, like some divided couple after a bizarre couples counselling session. Perhaps she thought that they could actually be friends.

Scorpius shuddered as he watched Elodie leave. She paused slightly when she slid open the compartment door, her hand resting on the handle.

"Have a good year, Scorpius," she said, not turning around to face him but her was voice burning with false brightness, "no doubt we'll eventually have to come into contact with each other."

"I'll look forward to it," he answered sarcastically, his eyes returning the page.

Elodie rubbed her thumb distractedly over the brass handle of the door, her eyes following its movements unconsciously. She took a long, deep breath and then exhaled heavily. She could feel the secondary smoke fill her lungs, as the carbon monoxide bonded with the hemoglobin in her blood, making it more difficult for oxygen to get to different parts of her body. She blinked twice; slightly alarmed as her brain recollected these useless facts. She remembered about how she had researched various Muggle diseases, searching for anything that could be linked to whatever Astoria had. She had borrowed books from the local library and after fumbling awkwardly with various plastic cards and small copper coins at the librarian's desk, she took them home and read them.

Elodie winced, and her fingers paused their slow methodical movements on the cold metal. It had been the night before she had met him on the station, and she had told herself that this was not some sort of vain attempt to win Scorpius back with her vast knowledge of his mother's illness, but a genuine concern for the woman's welfare. Astoria was pleasant enough, Elodie had reasoned as she flicked through the books and leaflets, and it would be wrong to not help her. She had stumbled upon pictures of blackened lungs, caused by the Muggle cigarettes that she knew Scorpius so adored. It was hard at that moment to think only of Astoria, especially when a small table of statistics showed towering death rates.

Elodie slid open the compartment door and stepped out into the corridor, breathing fresh air. She forced herself not to turn around and return to Scorpius and hit him or scold him or kiss him.

She slammed the door shut behind her. She hated the effect Scorpius had on her. It had made her grab his arm on the train station - in front of her parents - when usually they were under the strictest of rules to never make contact. This immense attraction, whether of disgust or desire, she wasn't quite sure, was going to destroy her, if it hadn't already.

She hated him for how he had behaved, how he had proposed, how he had ruined everything: but she also wanted to run back into his compartment pull the cigarette from his lips in some sort of mad attempt to save him so that he didn't end up as one of the statistics in her Muggle book. She shouldn't worry about him. He wasn't going to bother with her so she wasn't going to bother with him.

Elodie stood tall, rearranging her dress and cardigan so that she did not look so austere, or so much like her mother. Transfixed, for a moment, upon the rolling countryside outside the train window, she fiddled aimlessly with a small silver band around her middle finger. She pulled it off, instead sliding it onto her ring finger and admiring it in the weak autumn sunlight.

She would look good engaged.

 

 

Albus Potter hated the morning when he returned to school. He hated packing, he hated the disorganization of it all and he hated the tiresome traditions his family insisted on.

The journey to the station was jam-packed full of crying, shouting cousins, screeching owls and argumentative uncles. He wished that he could have just apparated, quickly and silently, away from the commotion that always settled on the Weasley family as they departed to King's Cross. They probably wouldn't have noticed, in all the chaos, if the quietest Weasley member simply disappeared from their ranks, his broomstick and his trunk in tow. He doubted they would notice if he ever did something out of the ordinary.

Albus flung his broomstick into his trunk (James had screamed and screamed when he was child, as he watched Albus swoop around the Potter garden on a broomstick when his wouldn't even lift off the ground. Quidditch skill, apparently, was the only thing Albus had inherited from his father, apart from his dark hair and green eyes) and stood, looking around at his room. It was perfectly tidy. His wardrobe was free of clothes, his shelves were free of books and his desk was no longer littered with old homework or detailed Quidditch plays. Everything he owned was now locked in his trunk, to be taken with him on the train to Hogwarts to be packed away, perfectly tidily, in his dormitory; his dormitory in the Slytherin dungeons.

Albus sat on the edge of his bed, listening to the shouts and cries of his family waft up the stairs and through the closed door. He remembered his father painting his room - painting it green - in a vain attempt to show that he was accepting of Albus' house, and Albus' choice. He had placed a small picture of a black haired, hook nosed man on Albus' desk, saying it was important for Albus to know whom his namesake was. He also said it was important that Albus knew that not all Slytherins were disgustingly prejudiced. Albus' mother had made a poor joke about someone called Pansy Parkinson before they had gone downstairs and left Albus alone to 'enjoy his new room'.

Albus could see it now, alone on the smooth, clean surface of his desk. Severus Snape stared out of the ornate silver frame, blinking occasionally and clenching his jaw. His dark eyes seemed to follow Albus around his room. He did not want to take the photograph to Hogwarts with him (it was the only thing left in his room, aside from a couple of leftover Weasley jumpers). Snape's eyes would just follow him around there too. According to his roommates, there was a portrait of him in the Headmaster's study. That version of Snape would able to talk to him. Albus shuddered.

He heard someone start to cry downstairs and he sighed. He leant back so that he was now lying on his bed. It was probably best if Albus stayed in his room for a few more minutes, unless he wanted to endure the wrath of his flamed-haired mother and her spoilt daughter, or the arrogant quips of his older brother. He stared at the ceiling, listening to the muffled shouts of his family. There would be more of them once they arrived at the station. It was the _tradition_ that all members of the Weasley clan were to show up at King's Cross to show the new generation onto the train, and that included all uncles, all aunties, all of the cousins and a very elderly Grandma Weasley. Albus was the only Slytherin in a huge group of Gryffindors, with a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. He felt alone whenever he was in that huge, attention-seeking group. He felt alone in the crowd.

"Albus Severus! If you are not down here in five minutes then we are leaving without you!"

_Please,_ Albus thought desperately as he shoved his school robes into a bag, _please leave without me._

He levitated his trunk down the stairs and stacked it next to the front door. Grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen table, he slumped on the sofa, chewing soundlessly as he watched his parents and his siblings rush frantically around the house. Lily had lost her prefect badge, and was on the floor, crying and kicking her feet in a way that any other fifteen-year old would be ashamed of. Harry Potter had lost the keys to the car he had borrowed from the Ministry (another tradition that Albus detested). Ginny Potter was hysterically trying to persuade James - who was lounging at the kitchen table - to join the family on the platform. Albus grimaced.

"Albus! Come on! We're leaving!"

"I'm here, Mum."

Ginny Potter turned to stare at him, her eyes wide and anxious.

"Have you got your trunk? Your broomstick? Have you got socks?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Have you seen Lily's prefect badge?"

"No, Mum."

She clenched her jaw and ran her fingers through her graying hair, striding off in the direction of the living room. As soon as she left, Lily picked herself off the floor and dusted herself down and sat opposite James. She pulled a box of crystallized pineapple from nowhere.

"Why aren't you coming, James? It's tradition," she whined, offering him the box.

"It's boring, that's what it is. I'd much rather be doing something else."

"I thought you were going to bring that new girlfriend of yours," she said suggestively, "Sally or Samantha or something..."

"Sylvia."

"What happened to her?"

"She had to go back to Belgium for a photo shoot. I won't see her until Wednesday."

"That's a shame," Lily replied. There was silence as the three siblings listened to the distant shouts of their parents. Apparently Albus' father had left the keys 'just there'. Albus sighed. He never understood how girls fell for his brother. He was an arsehole, arrogant and unintelligent. His only positive features were his obvious good looks, and the fact he was Harry Potter's son. The girls the eldest Potter child brought home were often ditzy and blonde, and wearing so little clothing that the material of their dresses and skirts didn't even bother with a pattern. If James brought them home for a family dinner during the holidays, the girls would glance suspiciously in Albus' direction. He was 'the other Potter boy': the quiet, plain, boring teenager who disappointed his family and spent his time reading. He was nothing like his elder brother.

Albus smirked. He never wanted to be.

He pulled a book from his pocket, and opened the front cover. It was an old copy of a Muggle novel, a present from his grandfather, which he had re-read so many times that he was pretty sure he could quote the thing by heart.

With his fingertips, he traced the words that Arthur Weasley had written there, in his untidy scrawl. Albus could almost feel the warmth emanate from the page, as through his grandfather had just written those words and the ink was fresh. Albus imagined him, sitting at his desk in the study of the Burrow, the fire roaring and the magnificent collection of Muggle plugs, light bulbs and cassette tapes would be illuminated by the flickering flames. Albus imagined him pouring over this book, his hand shaking with age as he penned the words, pushing his glasses further up his nose to squint at them.

_By silence, I hear other men's imperfections and conceal my own._ [1]

No one visited that study anymore. No one lit the fire, or cleaned the plugs and bulbs and tapes that were now plagued with dirt and dust. No one dared to disturb anything. Sometimes, when Albus was forced to attend the family gatherings at the Burrow, he would creep into this silent room. It was hidden away from the main house, located in the old outhouse where Arthur had kept his precious Ford Anglia. Albus would slip into the old, moth-eaten armchair and run his fingers over the ancient, leather bound books. He would never hear the shouts of laughter or arguments from the main house, just as his family would never realise that he had gone. Albus would flick silently through the pages of his grandfather's books, and he would almost hear them sigh with delight, for they had been longing - for a long time - to be touched, and read, and understood by someone. They had been left ignored since that Christmas, since the winter night when their owner had simply fallen asleep in front of the fire, only never to wake up again.

Albus felt his hand tighten around the book. He had been truly left alone then.

Albus felt the sudden urge to do something radical: to disapparate straight to the station, to simply walk out of this house and away from his idiotic brother and his bratty sister. He wanted to take all of his grandfather's books with him. He wanted to read them all. He wanted to go somewhere where no one knew his name, or that he was the 'other Potter boy', or that he was in Slytherin, or that he liked Quidditch. He wanted to go somewhere where no one knew him.

James and Lily would never notice. James and Lily wouldn't care. James and Lily were too busy discussing their own lives in far too much detail that if Albus were to turn himself invisible, they would never spot the change in the room, or feel the unseen presence of Albus standing beside them, breathing down their necks in a way that he would only dare to do when he wasn't able to be seen, and they weren't able to hit him. They wouldn't realise that he had gone.

Not that he would; that would be far too drastic, far too boisterous, far too loud. Albus was reserved. Big, expressive gestures and declarations weren't his thing.

He sank into a comfortable silence, flicking to his current page and starting to read.


	4. IV

Albus Potter was sitting by himself. 

This scenario was not unusual. His brown leather satchel sat closely by his side, a fairly worn book open in his lap, his shoes shined and shirt collar straight. He was perfectly tidy.

He had grown accustomed to listening to his own thoughts, to delving into the world of fantasy created for him by the authors of the novels he pored over. He did this so perfectly that he barely registered the tantrums of his sister, or the cool sarcastic comments of his brother, just as they would never acknowledge any of his actions.   
He would be left alone.

Albus bent the page corner of his book, saved his place and looked around. If he had been a writer, he would have tried to get this moment down on parchment. Albus would have tried to recreate the way the steam swirled around the station, or the sound of the train guttering and grunting on the platform and how it mingled with the cries of mothers and the goodbyes of fathers. He would describe, with the best possible turn of phrase, the sadness on mothers’ faces and the excited squeals of their children. The words would flow effortlessly from his quill and he would revel in the beauty of them. Others would read them and be entranced by the sentences and the clauses and the metaphors and the imagery. They would sigh and swoon over the elegant phrasing and rush for it to be published, for him to have his name embossed in gold on the front of some leather bound book, for him to get paid for doing the thing he so enjoyed.

The train’s horn sounded. Albus blinked twice.

The steam swirled. The train guttered and grunted. Mothers were sad. Children squealed excitedly. He couldn’t write it down. He wouldn’t be able to write about peoples’ emotions, or peoples’ reactions. It wouldn’t be realistic enough so that people would _believe_ him. The only thing he would be able to write truthfully was his isolation, his family’s inability to talk or comfort him and his seclusion. It was the only thing he knew. He would be able to write about writers. He could copy what they did. He could talk about their use of words, their structure of sentences, their turn of phrase, but he wasn’t able to create something of his own, not unless it recalled the story of one lonely boy’s escape to freedom.

A freedom that would come to Albus at the end of the school year, when he would be without the shadow of his father or the expectant looks of his professors. 

He would be without the pressure of being a Potter.

There were two people standing across the platform, nearer to the train. Albus placed his book quickly into his satchel, and reached farther into his bag for a copy of the Daily Prophet. Flipping the old newspaper over, he read again about the Malfoys, the disappearance, the illness, and of course, the son. His green eyes flicked upwards, towards the couple standing on the other side of the platform. He could tell that it was Malfoy - shoulders hunched, brooding, blond hair - and that the girl beside him must be Elodie. Albus swallowed.

He shared a dormitory with Malfoy. The small dark room was always silent. Conversation would be limited to a homework topic, the weather, or the Quidditch team. At times, Elodie Desmarais would grace them with her presence, swooping in and out with a comment about the state of the room or the untidiness of Malfoy’s hair. They would greet with a chaste kiss on the lips, and Albus would marvel at the ease of their conversation, of her grace and of his charm, of the effortless way her hand would slip into his.

Albus would stare. The other boys in the dorm thought that he had a thing for Elodie, but, as beautiful as she was - it was the mere dynamics of their relationship that fascinated and sometimes startled him. 

His sister Lily wasn’t graceful. His sister Lily was not beautiful, not in the way that Elodie Desmarais was. Albus couldn’t observe the actions of an elegant woman from the safety and comfort of his room, or from the old chair in his grandfather’s study. He had watched as their relationship blossomed, and then continued watching as it deteriorated. He watched as her visits became less frequent, and there were no welcome kisses or holding hands, and the whispered conversation became fraught with anger and suspicion.

He tried not to let the memory rush to the front of his mind. He tried not to remember where Malfoy had put his hands, the sounds the blonde girl had made, the dimness of the lights and the soft scent of French perfume. He tried to forget.

Albus Potter was staring now, as he watched Elodie and Malfoy walk towards the stern couple standing dangerously close to the bench where he was seated. Malfoy was dragging his trunk, and his steps were small and slow. Elodie was looking around her, obviously conscious of the small group of girls huddled around a luggage trolley, their perfect hair shining and their perfectly glossed lips glistening in the autumn sunlight.

Albus quickly unfolded the paper and hid his face behind it. There was a murmur of greetings, and the shuffling of feet as they moved to shake hands.

“So, Malfoy, did you enjoy your summer away? I heard you stayed in Paris for a couple of days. It is truly wonderful at this time of year.”

How strange, Albus thought, that Elodie and Malfoy used to talk and talk and spend entire hours in comfortable silence, and yet the conversation between them and her parents was strained and forced? He flipped the paper again. He was as interested in Gilderoy Lockhart’s return to full health as Malfoy was interested in the cultural attractions in Paris and the welfare of Elodie’s relatives. The murmur of conversation continued, until the bell signaled the train’s departure. Albus put down his newspaper and grabbed the handle of his trunk, lowering his head as he passed Elodie and the hurriedly disappearing blond boy.

He would hate it if Malfoy had seen him, if they would have to do the awkward acknowledge of acquaintanceship. He would force his lips into a small smile - not wave, definitely not wave, as that would signal to the Malfoy boy that Albus was overexcited to see him. A small smile, if Malfoy did not see it, could easily be interpreted as a mere gesture and on lookers would think that Albus was simply happy to be here.

What a lie.

People were flocking towards the train and blocking off the doors. There were parents as well, giving their last goodbyes. Albus readjusted his bag strap as he searched for his own. He found them at the end of platform, a photographer dancing around them. Albus’ father was smiling broadly with an arm clutched around his wife’s waist. Lily was flipping her hair back and forth and puckering her lips, attempting to find ‘her best side’ (Albus was pretty certain there wasn’t one) and James was stony faced and pouting. Albus’ lip curled automatically, as it did whenever his family posed for anything.

Albus pushed his way on (one observant new first year commented on his hair and his eyes and the likeness to his father), fighting through the crowds of students to find a compartment. There were all full of people, the cliques forming once again with the return to school. He got a particularly nasty look from a group of Hufflepuff girls before continuing down the corridor, and receiving another from a burly looking Gryffindor who he had beaten at Quidditch last year.

The train began to pull out of the station. He had yet to find a free compartment.

“Al! Al! Are you looking for someone?”

Albus grimaced at the piercing voice of his little sister, and tried desperately to ignore her. He continued up the corridor, but he could hear her small dainty footsteps behind him.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

Albus didn’t reply and tightened his grip on his trunk handle.

“Is this because of that thing James and I did to your books?”

The dark-haired boy looked through another compartment door, only to see a group of small first-years gawp at him. He rolled his eyes. He felt his sister tap at his elbow.

“I don’t understand, Al,” she whined, and Albus was surprised that she didn’t stamp her foot like a five-year old girl, “you have plenty of books, we really didn’t think that you’d mind if we...”

“They were my books, Lily, and...”

“Let me finish! We really didn’t think that you’d mind if we sent them to the children at the orphanage, where they have nothing, not even the love of their parents which we take so much for granted...”

“You used them for your end of summer bonfire. I found a singed copy of Dumbledore’s book in the garden.”

Lily Potter bit her lip, and flicked her long red hair over her shoulder. Where Albus was the splitting of his father, Lily was the splitting image of her mother, complete with brown eyes and freckles and a small, petite figure. But where their mother was talented and brave and clever, Lily was temperamental, spoilt and brash. With her good looks, she had the boys in her year at her heels, but she would crush them before James could get his hands on them. She was Gryffindor’s little princess. Having an anti-social, nerdy, quiet brother in Slytherin was a blight on her perfect reputation.

Albus started to walk again, his trunk wheels snagging on the corridor carpet.

“Aren’t you going to argue with me, Albus?”

The second youngest Potter stopped, and looked down the floor, inspecting his shining leather shoes. The windows rattled as the train went over a bump in the track.

“I do love it when you get angry,” his sister continued, and he imagined her twirling the end of her hair, eyes wide and innocent. It was the look she employed whenever her teachers were telling her off, or when her father accused her of something. Albus’ fingers tightened around the strap of satchel. He knew that his siblings liked to infuriate him. It had become a silly little competition between the two of them, when they realised that Albus was there and present within their sacred bubble. They would taunt and annoy him, steal his things, blame him for problems around the house. Simple things, really... things that an eight-year old would find funny, but not a nineteen-year old bachelor or a teenage girl.

“Oh, Al,” Lily sighed, “I get so disappointed when you give me the silent treatment. It’s like you’re not even trying.”

Albus remained silent.

“It means I have to listen to the sound of my own voice, and you know how much I hate to do that,” Lily said, she was probably pouting now.

“No, I didn’t know,” Albus replied sardonically, not even turning around to look at his little sister. He continued along the train. There must be a spare compartment somewhere. A place that wasn’t filled with gawking first years or burly Ravenclaws or irritating, petulant relatives...

“See! That’s so much better,” Lily replied, her voice brimming with false excitement, “it’s so much more fun when you try, Al. We can work on the comebacks together, if you want. Have a little bit of family bonding time.”

Her stupidly patronising voice was burning into Albus’ brain as they passed a group of raucous Hufflepuffs cheering at a classmate that was downing a pint of doxy eggs. Albus rolled his eyes, and he wondered whether they would get permanently stuck there, gazing up into the darkness of his cranium.

“You would hate that,” he said to his sister.

“True,” Lily answered nonchalantly, “even I hate to admit that there’s a snake in the family.”

Her voice was no longer shrill or high-pitched, but lower, calmer, haughtier. It was the voice she used when she was talking her way out of detentions and into boys’ daydreams.

“I could give you a detention, you know,” she continued, pulling a red and gold badge out of her pocket and flashing it in Albus’ direction, “simply for being in Slytherin.”

Of course they had made her a prefect. Of course they had to celebrate the obnoxious children of the saviour of the wizarding world. Of course said children would be allowed to parade around the school with free reign. Albus had gone on unnoticed, as usual. He was the Potter that didn’t fit in. He had recognised the feigned looks his family had thrown people who were in Slytherin, or were somehow tangled up in the Dark Arts, or were unfortunate enough to have the surname ‘Nott’ or ‘Goyle’.

“I suppose you could come and get your little Death Eater friends to come and kill me, but I’m pretty sure that’s out of question based on the fact that you don’t have any friends...”

Albus adjusted his strap. There must be a free compartment. The next one along, he kept telling himself. In the next compartment, he would be able to lock himself away from his sister and from the stares of the students and open his book and remember times at the Burrow, in the outhouse with his grandfather, without the snide comments of his siblings or the condescending remarks of his uncles and aunts. There would be none of James’ ditzy blonde girlfriends to call him plain or boring. He would be alone with his thoughts and with his books. Perfectly tidy. No loud gestures. Albus.

He punched open a door between two train carriages and continued along the corridor. His little sister persisted, walking quickly to keep up with him, her head bobbing at his shoulder. She was nattering on about family and house pride and herself and her popularity and which boy was trailing after her. Albus sighed as he tried to tune out her voice, his ears instead listening to the rolling wheels of his trunk or the faraway giggles of excited first years.

Albus’ gaze fell on a girl, her hand pressed against the train window. He froze.

Lily had continued walking, and tripped over Albus’ trunk, spluttering and swearing at the dark-haired boy. She stopped too, however, at the sight of the handsome girl and her staring brother.

“Elodie.”

The girl quickly withdrew her hand from the window, hiding it behind her back. She turned to face them. Albus didn’t have time to prepare himself for the staggering beauty of her features or the gracefulness of her actions. He remained still, his now clammy hand clenched tightly around the handle of his trunk, his toes curling in his shoes. He quickly recalled the last time they had seen each other. It had been on the last day of sixth year, and the entirety of Slytherin had gathered in the common room, trunks and broomsticks and owl cages in hand. Albus had been standing near the entrance to the common room, and Malfoy had been late. The blond boy had rushed through the door, and with his arrival Elodie had hurried over, pulling him away for a whispered conversation in a dark corner.

Albus and Elodie had not spoken. He had been merely watching her, observing, scrutinizing the dynamics of her relationship with Malfoy, calculating each movement and predicting every outcome. He knew their reactions, their every encounter, who they talked to, what they did and he recognised the wordless way in which they communicated.

But he dared not speak to them.

“Potter,” the blonde girl replied, with a soft smile. She rearranged the edge of her grey dress. Lily threw her hair over her shoulder.

“How was your summer?”

Albus was taken aback at his sister’s politeness, her reserve, and her apparent friendliness. He supposed this was what made her popular, that no one knew the side of her that was unleashed when she returned to Godric’s Hollow. He released his hand from his trunk, and feeling began flooding back into his fingertips.

“Woefully inadequate,” Elodie answered, and her voice was neutral, calm, beautiful, “how about yours?”

Her eyes flitted over to Albus, but he kept his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

“Fine,” Lily said. Albus could tell she was getting bored. She had crossed her arms and was biting at her lips.

“How about you, Albus?”

Albus heard Lily’s sudden intake of breath, evidence of her surprise that someone was talking to her brother, that a beautiful girl was talking to her brother, that someone she apparently respected (and perhaps admired) was talking to her dirty, low life, alienated brother. Albus looked upwards, toward the striking girl.

“It was...”

“I really should be going, actually,” the youngest Potter interrupted, “I am already late for a prefect meeting and Rose is sure to throttle me. It was nice catching up with you, Elodie. We should do it more often.”

Albus recognised the strained expression on his sister’s face. A vein was pulsing dangerously in her neck and her face was flushed. She hated being polite and well-mannered. She was all too used to people falling at her feet and her being able to trample all over them.

“Yes of course, Lily, that would be wonderful.”

“Good.” The younger girl smiled and Albus swore he could see every single tooth. “I’ll be off, then. Have a good year, Al, and try not to stare too much. I’m pretty sure it makes Elodie feel uncomfortable.”

Albus immediately returned to looking at the floor. He hadn’t meant to. His stomach recoiled as he remembered the other times that Elodie or Malfoy had caught him looking. Elodie would smile uncertainly, perhaps do a little wave. Malfoy would nod. They would both look away after a second, but Albus would carry on, continue until he found out their secret, until he remembered that it was improper. He wondered whether it would have changed now, whether the direction of their relationship would have been changed by the disappearance of Malfoy’s father, or his mother’s illness. He wondered whether Elodie would stand by him, be at his side to comfort and support him. He wondered whether they had gone through enough that this would faze them.

Again, the picture of the darkened room flashed into his mind’s eye, and he cringed inwardly. He hated carrying this secret with him, but he felt obliged to keep it hidden. Moaning, groaning, French perfume and hands. He undid the top button of his shirt.

Lily bounced away, her red hair swinging. The train went over another bump in the tracks, and the two students stumbled. Albus righted himself, Elodie leant her left hand against the window for support. He glanced quickly at her delicate fingers, at the small silver ring wrapped around her fourth finger. Engagement. Or marriage.

Albus had known that the girl in that room was not Elodie. He would have recognised her, her body language, her looks. Her very essence.

“So, Albus,” Elodie began, and the dark-haired boy looked towards her. He suddenly felt panic. What did he call her? It wasn’t like they shared some sort of special relationship or friendship. Scorpius had called her ‘El’ from time to time.

“Hello,” he said quietly.

“Are you looking for a compartment? There’s a free one right by the driver’s cabin.”

He wondered briefly whether Elodie made noises like _that_. His throat suddenly felt very tight.

“I would sit with you,” she said kindly, but with an air of forced politeness, obviously trying to continue talking while Albus choked and a sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead, “but I have to get back to my friends.”

“Yes, of course. Genevieve and Madeleine.”

“Yes, Genevieve and Madeleine,” she replied, smiling uncertainly, and Albus swore under his breath. He shouldn’t know things like that. He didn’t share classes with the girls, he didn’t socialise, and he shouldn’t know that. “I’m timing it perfectly so that they’ve stopped discussing who the best looking boy is by the time I get back.”

They both laughed weakly.

“So... so I should... I should probably get going.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, go ahead.”

The corridor filled with awkwardness as the two of them maneuvered their way around each other, Albus’ trunk getting in the way, the air fraught with strained apologies. When they finally managed to steer away from each other, Elodie flashed Albus a small smile before turning and walking down the corridor.

Albus released a breath he had been holding.

He had wanted to tell her. He had wanted to tell her about Malfoy, about what he was doing, about who he was doing. Albus had wanted to share the secret that he kept with him all of last term, and all through the summer. It had tormented him, his mind full of thoughts of it as he read all about the Malfoys and the illness and the disappearance. He had glanced furtively at the pictures in the Prophet and at the posters at his father’s work. Albus had somehow felt guilty for holding in a secret that nobody knew he kept. People would gasp in surprise and their eyes would stretch wide if they thought that Albus Potter was capable of gossiping.

Lily would scold him if she ever thought that he was encroaching on her turf.

Genevieve and Madeleine would run their fingers through their dark hair, and laugh at the debauchery of it all.

Malfoy wouldn’t care, and simply gaze aloofly at him.

Albus turned quickly, staring as Elodie walked away down the corridor. He knew how she would react, of course. She would put on a most beautiful brave face that would fool her friends and the girls in her year and her teachers. She would tell everybody that she was fine, wave the matter away with a flourish of her hands, make a sarcastic comment and then continue.

Elodie wouldn’t tell anyone the truth. She wouldn’t show anyone the truth.

Albus had been reading, secluded in the quiet of his four-poster, the curtains closed around him. It was the beginning of winter, and the cold had bitten at his fingers on the way from the library. The door had clicked open, and he heard footsteps across the dormitory. He turned a page, thinking it was simply one of his own roommates, but he heard a strong shudder of breath and then quiet weeping. Albus had crawled across his bedspread. It would have been far too obvious if he had stuck his head out of the curtains, so instead he merely peered through the gap in the material.

He immediately withdrew, and looked anywhere but at the scene occurring on the other side of the dark green velvet. The sentences and words and phrases on the page were more interesting, he told himself.

Elodie had entered the dorm, and collapsed into Malfoy’s arms. Albus dared not interrupt them, as the look on the blond man’s face was so littered with emotion that Albus suddenly guilty for intruding. One of Malfoy’s hands was wrapped around the girl’s waist, the other smoothing down her hair. She had stopped crying, and the two of them were sitting in silence. They were unparalleled.

Albus marveled at the exquisiteness of the moment, at the perfect way the cold winter light was pouring through the window and the way their pale skin contrasted against the luxurious silk and dark wood of the Slytherin dormitory. He wished, once again, that he could have had the talent to able to immortalize the moment on parchment, to perfectly describe the scene and their relationship. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have the authority to write about someone else. He couldn’t write their internal monologue, merely because he couldn’t read their thoughts, no matter how much he wanted to.

Albus looked at Elodie, now disappearing into a compartment. He let out a long, low whistle. She had said that there was a free one near the driver’s cabin, so he pushed his trunk towards it, his mind still reeling from his chance meeting with the beautiful blonde girl. He slid open the door, his gaze was downcast as he fumbled with the trunk handle.

When he finally looked up, his eyes widened. Malfoy was sitting on the leather seat, a book in his lap, and smoke curling mysteriously around his handsome face.

Today was just a day of first encounters.


	5. V

Sally Striven had never once been late for anything, apart from Elizabeth Lakeland’s birthday party when she was six. Her parents had forgotten to pick her up from swimming practice at the allocated time, and so she had arrived at the village hall with still-wet hair and without a present. Elizabeth had said Sally had smelt funny, and the young girl had screamed and cried, and her uncontrollable immature magic had caused a light bulb to explode. Her Hogwarts letter had arrived five years later. The letter telling her she was a prefect had only arrived three weeks ago.

So when she found herself racing down the corridor, with her dark hair flying, perfectly preened school robes flapping and prefect badge shining, she cursed herself for being so stupid. She was going to be late for her first prefect meeting and there was no one there to blame apart from herself.

When she finally arrived at the compartment, she took a moment to flatten down her hair and press her cold hands to her slightly flushed cheeks. She breathed in and out, and stepped inside. The Head Boy had been in full swing and was pointing at a patrol rota with everybody’s name on it. Several people turned when they heard the door open. Several people even sent Sally glares, as if by turning up late she had personally insulted them.

“Miss Striven?”

Sally had been looking for a seat when the Head Girl spoke. Standing awkwardly between crossed-legged fifth years, she looked up before almost toppling over as she lost her balance. 

She saw Dominique Weasley lounging on a seat, her usual gang of seventh-year stalkers seated at her feet, their mouths hanging open as she flicked her hair behind her shoulder and sprayed French perfume on her delicate white wrists. Fred Weasley was throwing and catching a Quaffle, smiling lazily as his twin sister whispered something into his ear. 

Sally wanted to sit down as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front the entire Weasley-Potter clan.

“Could I have a word with you? In private, please?”

And Rose Weasley was speaking to her. Sally looked towards the Head Girl, at her red curls and freckled skin, at her summer dress, at her shining Head Girl badge. She was beaming at Sally, showing all her teeth in a brilliant smile that had seduced teachers, the entire student population and stolen the heart of Oscar Moore; her Head Boy, her blond-haired, blue-eyed, clever, funny, good-looking boyfriend. The two of them had been the subject of school gossip for months – even more so than the ever-twisting tale of Scorpius Malfoy and Elodie Desmarais – and their shenanigans had been spread around the school so many times that more than once, Sally had found herself discussing it in her underground dormitory in Hufflepuff house.

“Of course,” Sally said quietly, ignoring the judging looks of Lucy Weasley, who glared at her from behind her book. Rose smiled again, and after sharing a loving look with Oscar, rose elegantly from her seat and easily navigated her way through the seated prefects.

Another smile. Sally returned it sheepishly.

“I’ll be back in a moment, Oscar,” Rose said, and pushed Sally gently out into the corridor. The dark-haired girl suddenly felt very nervous and smoothed down her school robes and straightened her prefect’s badge. There was a moment of silence as the two girls stared out at the countryside, bathed in a glorious sheen on autumn sunlight.

“You’re in Hufflepuff, aren’t you?” Rose said, and Sally blushed for some unknown reason, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Err… yes.”

“My cousin’s in Hufflepuff,” the Head Girl continued, “do you like the whole underground thing? Some people think it gets a little bit claustrophobic.”

“It can sometimes, I suppose. I prefer to call it cosy.”

Rose laughed. A high, tinkling giggle that would have made little birds sing and make boys’ jaws drop and convince anyone into doing whatever Rose said. It suited her. It suited her tightly curled hair and brilliant smile. It suited her summer dress and the autumn sun and her handsome boyfriend. Sally was jealous, and hoped that maybe one day she could be as perfect as Rose Weasley appeared to be.

“And who is the other Hufflepuff prefect? Who is the boy you are going to spending so much time with, eh?”

Sally giggled stupidly, blushing again. She had heard rumours that Rose was ruthless, that she cut down anyone who was in her way, that she was an attention-seeking, over-achieving girl who only got her own way because of her looks and a severe case of nepotism. Sally didn’t believe it. The young woman standing in front of her was sweet and kind and polite. She obviously cared enough about Hogwarts and it’s students that she became Head Girl, and she must have worked hard enough to get twelve OWLs or something ridiculous like that.

“Norman. Norman Widdecombe.”

“Is he the tall one? With the blue eyes?”

Sally nodded, and Rose smiled again, clapping her hands together and jumping up and down slightly.

“You two are so cute.”

The two of them talked a little more about boys, about Norman. Sally was hoping she might get some information about Rose and Oscar, but Rose persisted in asking questions; about her home, her parents, what classes she was taking, whether she liked Professor Weston, what she thought of house elf welfare. They chatted so easily and freely, and Sally was a little taken aback by the older girl’s kindness and enthusiasm. Rumours of a ruthless bitch flitted from her mind.

“Now, Sally, I’m sure you didn’t think I would drag you out here just to talk about boys and Professor Weston, as fun as it sounds,” Rose said.

“Of course not,” Sally replied.

“I just wanted to tell you that if you are ever late to a prefect meeting again, I would personally strip you of your badge.” Her voice had suddenly changed. Now it was cold, uncaring and Sally felt like she was about to cry.

“Yes, but Rose, I… err…” she whimpered in response.

“It’s just not good enough, is it? People look up to you, don’t they?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. Now off you go,” Rose said, voice bursting with false sweetness and patronising grin plastered all over her face, “you’ll miss all the good bits if you stand around out here.”

Rose Weasley watched as the younger girl hurried back into the compartment and, after the door closed, she smiled. The younger prefects just needed to be trained, that’s all. They needed to be taught the ways of the world and eventually, with a stern grip on the rules and an inspiring leader to guide them, they would come out at the other end as well-rounded, morally superior individuals.

She sighed, satisfied, and was about to re-enter the compartment when she saw her cousin Albus, standing stock still outside a door at the other end of the train. Rose rolled her eyes. The enigmatic qualities of her sociopathic cousin could be explored at a later date. She breathed in and out, pretending not be fascinated by the workings of his mind and dampened the desire to make him more normal. She stepped back into the compartment. Rose Weasley flashed her boyfriend a majestic smile, which he returned, and all thoughts of her unfathomable cousin were gone.

 

It took Scorpius Malfoy a while to realise that someone was standing in the doorway. He continued to read, his eyes skimming the pages, impervious to the stares of the young, dark-haired man who stood, stock still, at entrance to the compartment.

And when he did realise, he simply nodded in greeting. The boy, Potter, was quiet, polite. He liked to read. He liked to study. He was good at Quidditch. Scorpius took in his appearance: the shined shoes, the straightened collar and the neatly parted hair. He wanted to laugh at him, but all he felt was a strange sense of sympathy for the boy.

He didn’t know much else about Potter - even though they had shared a dorm for the past six years - aside from the fact that his older brother was a bastard and his younger sister was prat. Scorpius remembered, briefly, a time in his fifth year when Lily Potter and her eldest brother had taunted him in front of the entire school about his grandfather and his history. He had hit James rather lamely, his broken hand barely bruising the older boy's face. The girl had smirked horribly when her brother gripped Scorpius in a headlock and threw her head back and laughing manically as James thrust his own fists into Scorpius' stomach. The other Weasleys had looked on listlessly, bored as Scorpius' skin became blackened and bruised. He remembered crumpling to the floor, blood issuing from his nose, James being lead off to a detention that would never happen and Elodie's wide concerned eyes as she forced him to his feet and towards the hospital wing.

Her eyes.

Scorpius shook his head, before focusing his eyes back on the book page. He had reread the same sentence over and over, but the clanging of Potter’s trunk on the rail and the constant nagging reminders of Elodie’s face meant he could not concentrate.

“Do you want some help?”

Potter turned quickly at Scorpius’ question, surprised, his hands slipping from the handle. The whole trunk fell from its precariously balanced position and onto Potter’s leg.

“You all right?”

“Yeah... it’s just heavy, that’s all.”

Scorpius nodded, lighting another cigarette and turning the page of his book. In between paragraphs, his gaze would flick towards the other boy that shared his compartment and his dormitory. It had surprised all the Slytherins, obviously, when he had been sorted into their house. It had been a certainty that every Potter and every Weasley would be sorted into Gryffindors, where they would be praised and pampered until their hearts content.

Remembering the silence of the Great Hall when the hat had called out Slytherin, Scorpius wondered whether the small, dark-haired boy with green eyes had told the hat to sort him into that house, or whether Potter did actually have some cunning in him.

If he did, he definitely wasn’t showing it. He was sitting with his back straight in the leather seat, book open on his lap. The sight made Scorpius want to shut his own novel. He felt as if the two of them shouldn’t have anything in common. He was a Potter, who belonged in Gryffindor with the rest of his petulant family. They destroyed the Dark Lord. People worshipped them. 

People didn’t worship Scorpius, or his family, or Slytherin. Nobody did anymore, not even Purebloods or the remaining Death Eaters. After his father’s disappearance and his mother’s illness, their name had become less and less respected. Everyone knew it, even Elodie’s family.

Scorpius watched as Potter pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet from his satchel, unfolding it. He could see a picture of his father staring back at him - scowling and glaring even from the newspaper ink. He could also feel Potter’s gaze on him.

“Yes?”

Potter blinked, and shook his head slightly. Scorpius smirked. He knew that the younger Potter had some unhealthy relationship with Elodie. He would always catch him staring at her from over the top of his book, or at her reflection in the mirror in the mornings when he was straightening his tie.

“Sorry,” Potter said. His cheeks had suddenly filled with colour and Scorpius couldn’t help but think that he was looking at some ten-year old with a particularly lanky frame.

Another few minutes passed in awkward silence, the only sound the crinkling of book pages and the rumble of the train on the tracks.

“I’m sorry about your mother, by the way.”

Albus had thought that it was the right thing to say.

It had taken him a couple of moments while standing in the doorway to gather up the courage to step inside. He knew he was being stupid. He shared a room with Malfoy for six years, and they had talked before, about the weather and Binns’ essay.

He was simply worried at the thought of conversation.

His heart was still palpitating slightly after the encounter with Elodie when he had finally stepped inside and struggled with his luggage. It seemed to miss a beat when the blond boy had offered him his help. Albus didn’t understand why he was so affected by this human contact, why socialising was so difficult for him, why - at a single question - he seemed to tense up and lose all possible train of thought in the hope that he could think of something witty and interesting to say in return.

Albus had thought that they could find some subject to talk about, some mutual interest that would allow the entire journey to be filled with intellectual conversation. He knew that they shared a mutual interest: Elodie, of course, but he knew that bringing that up would simply delve the two of them into some sort of argument that Albus wouldn’t win. Malfoy shouldn’t know about his fixation with the girl, and him, and the relationship the two shared.

Removing the newspaper from his satchel, Albus had skimmed over the headlines and then opened it up. Draco Malfoy had been staring up at him from the central page, his receding hairline and pointed chin even more prominent in the unflattering photo. 

He switched his gaze towards the blond young man. They hardly had the relationship were they could talk easily of each other’s familial problems. Albus knew that Malfoy hated the Potters and the Weasleys. He also knew that he should hate the Malfoys, but he was strangely fascinated by the way they had been segregated from society; how the family that had once been so powerful and wealthy had then descended the ranks as a result of their insatiable appetite for power. Albus had never witnessed that sort of undoing.

Unless he counted his sister’s tantrums.

He watched as Malfoy raised his eyebrow.

"Sorry, I was just reading about it in the paper, and... " Albus stopped talking after noticing the expression on the blond man's face. Cold indifference, staring. Completely still against the curling smoke of his cigarette. It was obvious that the other boy did not want to talk to Albus about his family issues, and he understood: he would never share his thoughts on his petulant sister Lily, or the oddly patronizing nature of his parents to a roommate who he didn't care about.

But he did care, obviously, otherwise Albus wouldn't have spent the past six years analyzing and determining the complex nature and constantly changing landscape of Elodie and Malfoy's relationship.

"Sorry," he repeated, and silence descended upon the compartment again. Albus' eyes flickered from the headlines to the report about the Malfoys to the Quidditch results, trying to avoid the way the other boy was staring at him, his eyes accusing and angry. Albus could almost burst with the awkwardness. In any normal situation, like when Malfoy had ever caught him gazing at Elodie over the top of his book, he would simply look away, then make a swift departure before either of them could make their way over to him and ask him - again - why he was staring. He couldn't do that now, though. He couldn't go and do rounds, because he wasn't a prefect. He couldn't go to a Quidditch meeting, because the season hadn't started yet. He couldn't go and meet his friends, because he didn't have any.

The need to make conversation was pressing down on him, a heavy weight on his mind. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand why he suddenly felt like he should be able to impress Malfoy, why he so desperately wanted his approval. The atmosphere in the overly hot compartment delved into awkwardness, and Albus couldn’t look anywhere else than at the picture of Malfoy’s father or at the ceiling, or at the old, yellowing pages of his book.

“I’m sorry,” Albus repeated. For some reason, he felt a second apology was needed. Hopefully, he thought, it would get rid of the blanket of uneasiness that had shrouded them.

“You said.”

“We could talk about something else.”

“How about we just don’t talk?” Malfoy’s voice was strained. He had lit another cigarette and as he gesticulated, Albus watched the glowing tip as it swerved dangerously close to the pages of the blond man’s book and the cuff of his sleeve. 

“I’m sorry.” Albus surprised himself; his voice sounded unnatural to him – tense and uneasy. He clenched his jaw. He suddenly felt very angry that Malfoy had shot him down. The surge of emotion for difficult for him to process – the reaction was unprecedented. He didn’t know whether to act on it or whether he should just bottle it up. He preferred the latter. Albus was used to feeling when surrounded by his idiotic cousins, or when his patronising parents forced him to join in. Not now. Not with Malfoy.

“You’ve got to stop saying that.”

Albus was about to apologise again but he stopped himself just in time. Instead he said something else – something he had been keeping to himself all summer. No one else knew. It had the secret he alone kept.

“What about Dominique?”

Scorpius Malfoy took a long drag of his cigarette and stared at the dark-haired boy. He knew. Albus Potter knew. Scorpius didn’t understand how, but somehow word had got out. Somehow, someone had found out that he was having some sort of illicit affair with Dominique Weasley. It was true, and Scorpius knew the renowned beauty would deny they had ever spoken. She would toss her hair over her shoulder, flutter some eyelashes, and the rumour would deteriorate. Nobody would question her. He didn’t mind if the news got out: he couldn’t care less about it. But by some means, little Albus Potter had crawled out of his isolated, anti-social hole and found out about it.

Scorpius turned at the sound of a muffled yelp outside the compartment. The last thing he wanted was some obnoxious second year asking about his father or gawking at Potter’s resemblance to his father.

“How do you know?”

“You’re not denying it?”

Scorpius flicked his cigarette out of the window. Potter’s tone of voice surprised him: it was stern, almost cruel, and Scorpius held back a laugh. He probably thought that he was defending his cousin’s honour and virtue by questioning Scorpius like this.

“How did you find out?”

“I saw you two together.”

“Oh yes, I forgot you stalked me,” Scorpius replied nonchalantly and the other boy blushed. Maybe it wasn’t to do with his cousin, as Potter rarely ever spoke to his family – his relationship with them was hardly affectionate, hardly familial – but more to do with Elodie. Scorpius had seen the way he looked at her. Their eyes used to meet while they both looked at her.

"And what about Elodie?" Albus said, as the quip about his stalker tendencies slid over his head like all the other insults he had faced that day. He ignored only the slight truth in Malfoy’s words.

Albus expected a play of emotions to cross Scorpius' face at the question, for him to show some emotion at the mention of his old love. He had remembered the intensity that coloured Malfoy and Elodie's relationship - the lust, ache and redemption that characterized their every act. But now, something was different – Albus saw it immediately - over the course of the summer, their all-consuming relationship had adopted a new hue: there was more apathy, a blankness in Malfoy’s eyes that suggested that the beautiful blonde girl didn’t mean anything to him anymore.

"I suppose you'll be happy to now that we're completely over," Malfoy said. Albus tried to ignore the swooping sense of dread building up inside.

"And?"

"She doesn't know," he said simply.

"Are you going to tell her?"

"No," Scorpius replied.

Albus breathed out heavily as disappointment flooded him. He thought that Scorpius would at least tell her, to save her from hearing it from someone else, to show her respect. At his refusal, Albus felt that the relationship that had engrossed and overpowered him for a long year had finally finished, that they were behind the games and torturing that had grown so accustomed to. A new relationship, one where Scorpius was so closely entwined with his own family, one as equally destructive, had grown in its place. 

"What if she hears it from somewhere else?"

"Well, you have no one to tell."

How was it possible to never be open to anyone, and yet to find yourself entirely consumed by another person? How was it possible to be so mean with your sentiments, and yet to be a conduit for the most life-altering relationship Albus had witnessed?

"And Dominique? What about my cousin?"

Albus Potter watched the blond man’s face carefully, searching for any sign of a reaction. There seemingly was none. He was cold and indifferent as before.

It was easier to think of them as separate entities: the Dominique he knew was one of the most selfish, devious figures he had ever met, with her undeniable looks and other-worldly demeanour, and she could seduce and destroy someone if the need arose. Enticed by the thrill, she was obviously fascinated by the prospect of a rebellious relationship with the offspring of her family's enemy. 

No one wanted to get on the wrong side of Dominique Weasley, not when her cousin could give so many detentions that you would never see the light of day again, or when there were rumours of her monster blood and werewolf father and definitely not when she could make you want to kiss or kill her with a single look or One first year swore she had seen the ethereal beauty turn into a great bird with terrifying talons and bloodthirsty eyes and she had watched as the bird-woman had ripped the life from an unsuspecting rabbit and fed on its flesh. Another had suggested that Dominique drank the blood of unicorns and young children to retain her youth and beauty, and she was in fact a hundred years old. One little boy thought she was an angel.

And Scorpius was obviously drawn to her, like everyone else. She picked him out because he was weak and now she enthralled him. That's how it worked, Albus mused, he had seen it often enough. 

"She wouldn't tell."

Albus didn't believe him, but he nodded anyway. In a way, that nod was a signal to himself of the closure that had fallen upon Scorpius and Elodie's relationship.

They had given him the greatest experience of love; better than the picture perfect pretence of his parents and his family or the shallow, childish love shared between Rose and her Head Boy. From watching and imitating, Albus had learnt the exact way to hold someone's hand, how to whisper tenderly into someone's ear, how to finally swap one's own secrets for another's. 

_"He was a fascination, in a way. I mean, they both were,"_ Albus would find himself telling girls as they lay in his bed, years later, their hands over his heart, _"and at the time – it sounds stupid now – but at the time, the way there were together seemed like something amazing. They seemed so special and the way they clawed at each other was so raw. It was like… watching something… I don't know. Something big."_ They would tell him it wasn't stupid, kiss him (each would still feel new and unsure) and caress him. Hours, days, weeks or months later the girls would leave unsatisfied, somehow disappointed that the quiet, observant young man that talked of love so easily was so incapable of it and that the only feeling they had held over him was simply powerful infatuation.

But what would Albus do now? Looking down at the pages of his book, he ran his fingertips over the words and letters. He contemplated writing a story about them, for their entire tumultuous journey to be recorded in ink and parchment. Albus would write himself in as their friend and confidante, popular and intelligent, the boy his parents' wanted and the boy who excelled.

“I suppose you think that you know her better than I do,” Malfoy said. Albus raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

“I don’t know my family.”

“Let’s not turn this into some sort of bonding session.”

“I’m sorry,” Albus replied, looking towards the door as he heard another muted cry from the corridor. He considered going outside look whether anyone was there. It would definitely be better if no one were listening.

Scorpius Malfoy shuffled in his seat and lit another cigarette, shaking his head as the dark haired boy apologised again. He offered the packet to the other boy.

“Want one?”

“No thank you.” His voice had returned to the timid tones that Scorpius recognized from their small talk in the Slytherin dormitory. Potter took a long look at him before smoothing down his hair and returning to the pages of his book. It was as if the conversation between them had never happened. 

As the train stumbled over a bump in the track, the compartment rolled back into silence. The weight of the summer secret flittered out of Albus Potter’s mind, and was placed into much more able hands.

Rose Weasley beamed as she leant off the compartment wall and set off back down the train, red hair swinging, Head Girl badge shining, and bright smile beaming.


	6. VI

Rose Weasley watched as the group of first years blinked in the candlelight, their black robes unadorned with the colours of their future houses, their faces pink and raw from the wind that had pummeled their little boats across the lake. 

She watched the observant eyes of the teachers and the older students as they silently assessed the young ones for the year ahead: the new Slytherins could be identified from their poorly concealed smirks of disdain, their sunken eyes and sallow skin, their general disregard for the others around them whereas the Hufflepuffs were bright and cheery, faces plastered with wide grins and giggles, attempting to talk and make conversation. The Ravenclaws were quiet and secluded; each one beautiful in their own way and Rose predicted that they would look more at home in the library or the classroom.

“Appleby, Simon!”

The Gryffindors were different. Rose smiled nostalgically at their barely concealed whoops of pleasure at the sight of the Great Hall, the curiosity abundant in their eyes, at their loud and brash conversations. She remembered this moment well, and revisited the memory every year. Rose had been surrounded by her cousins, surrounded by a cloud of buzzing excitement and glory that had made her yearn for the days and lessons to come. People all around her had been whispering about the daughter of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, the daughter of two of the most powerful people in Britain, and she had felt more at home than ever.

“Bertrand, Alison!”

The moment when the hat told her she was in Gryffindor was one of her most prized in a memory already filled with Quidditch wins, prefect badges, exam results and a perfect ‘I love you’. Her parents had been thrilled – the letter had been littered with congratulations from the entire family, even a curt note at the bottom from her Uncle Percy about positions of responsibility and how to gain them – and Rose hadn’t been able to suppress her smile for the rest of the week. Even news that her reclusive cousin Albus had been sorted into Slytherin didn’t dampen her mood.

“Campbell, William!”

Looking over at him now, alone and silent at one end of the Slytherin table, Rose bit her lip in worry. He had changed, definitely, and she thought that the dastardly demeanors of his fellow housemates must have influenced him, that his charm and character she knew he must have and that he kept hidden had been sucked out of him by their dark magic and cruel jokes. She had heard rumours of the Slytherins in her year – led by the single entity that was Scorpius Malfoy and Elodie Desmarais – that had made her grind her teeth. 

“Delany, Catherine!”

And now the news of Dominique’s association with them had sent Rose reeling. A small, very miniscule part of her was gleeful that she had discovered the news, that she finally had something on her wild, uncontrollable cousin. She produced the greatest threat to Rose’s reign. Her ability to charm her way into any boy’s bed (even rumours of several professors) would surely have it’s consequences and Rose knew she did not want to be involved. The rest of her felt queasy at the revelation that there was something going on between Dominique Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy, whose father had attempted to kill Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age, and who had been secluded from society after the fall of pureblood families. The idea of them _together_ put her off her food.

“Edwards, Kevin!”

Rose looked over to the table on the far side of the room, decorated with green flags and silver snakes and shuddered slightly. Albus had pulled a book from his pocket and was reading it, ignoring the clapping of his housemates as another student joined their ranks. She spotted Elodie Desmarais as she smiled at the first years, and she couldn’t help but notice the similarity between her and Dominique. French, blonde and beautiful seemed to be Scorpius Malfoy’s type. He was seated closer to the teacher’s table.

“Ford, Rebecca!”

Rose had never really looked at him before. She had acknowledged his presence only once or twice during their school years together. She had tittered condescendingly when he had answered a question wrong or walked in late, or perhaps apologised half-heartedly if she knocked into him in the library or the corridor. When her father had told her about him, all those years ago on a train platform, she had recognized him as a rival, someone to beat in every test and in every way. Rose had watched as he had been sorted into Slytherin. She had laughed when he found out he got a P on his very first piece of homework. Rose had realised he was not worth her time or effort, and that her attention could be put to better use making every teacher and every student adore and admire her.

“Green, Martin!”

Rose wondered why Dominique would sink that low. She supposed her rebellious and free-spirited cousin had liked the idea of a challenge, going against the natural order of Hogwarts where your popularity and your relevance mirrored how much your family did in the war and what side they were on. Rose assumed that Dominique liked the mystery of him: his dark side, the enigmatic qualities to him, and the no doubt unfathomable depths to his family’s secrets. Most children get a tattoo or a piercing or run away with a dragon tamer to Peru when they want to rebel (Rose cringed slightly as she remembered Molly’s various misadventures against her controlling and overbearing father), but Dominique’s obviously had to insult her family in every way possible. Her threatening to disappear to Beauxbatons had been miniscule in comparison to this.

“Huntington, Jacob!”

Rose supposed he was handsome, if sullen and brooding were qualities she found attractive. He looked cold and indifferent, sitting in the middle of a large group who were talking and laughing all around him. She saw the glances he sent in Desmarais’ direction – almost of longing – and she wondered whether Dominique was getting involved in something she didn’t understand. The rumours of the two Slytherins tempestuous relationship and their destructive end had flown through the school like wildfire, and talking and whispering and bitching about them had almost made the pain of her grandfather’s death almost bearable. It had been something to distract her.

“Isaacs, Leonard!”

Clapping enthusiastically to welcome in the new first year, Rose smiled. The whole thing was all very stupid. She had heard of Malfoy’s family problems: of his father’s disappearance, his mother’s illness and general loss of land and money and respect. Dominique would grow bored of listening to him whine and cry and she would soon move onto to someone better: hopefully someone from Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, even a Hufflepuff would be better than Scorpius Malfoy.

“Joseph-Knightley, Sandra!”

“Have I missed anything?”

Rose slid down the bench to allow her cousin to sit down beside her. Dominique Weasley had arrived late, as usual, but she bore no evidence of being flustered. Her perfect porcelain skin was still the colour of ice, the bright blue eyes shining, and her silver blonde flowing down her back like some ethereal waterfall. Rose felt that familiar swell of self-consciousness at the sight of her cousin – her uniform suddenly felt too tight for her, her thighs too large, her hair too bushy, her nose too long – but it was over in flash and she rearranged her tie before replying.

“Just the sorting, Dominique, you miss it every year and I could give you a detention for being late.”

“You wouldn’t. I’m a prefect, remember?” Her tone was lighthearted and carefree and Rose knew she was speaking the truth. Taking points from family members – from basically the entirety of your house – was strictly forbidden in Weasley law. “Besides, I haven’t said hello to Oscar yet, have I?”

Rose’s jaw tightened as her beautiful cousin waved and smiled at her boyfriend. She relaxed a little when he replied half-heartedly. There was no trace of the blush that seemed to brighten up boys’ faces when Dominique talked to them, so she sighed with relief and resumed her pretense of watching the Sorting.

“Kelsey, Robert!”

“So,” Dominique began, flipping her hair over her shoulder and Rose ignored how a boy’s eyes became unfocused as infatuation set in, “don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing?”

“I know who, but not what,” Rose replied primly, “and I’m not sure I want to know.”

“What?”

“I wish you would have told me when you decided to start sleeping around with Scorpius Malfoy. We could have talked about it, and I could have convinced you out of it.”

Rose clapped merrily as another first year joined the table. She smirked at Dominique’s sour expression, and her heart gave a little flutter as she regained a sense of power over her defiant cousin, and when Oscar sent her a flirtatious wink, she felt completely in control.

“Langthorn-Kirby, Elizabeth!”

“How did you know?”

“I won’t tell anyone, obviously, I don’t want it to get back to me,” Rose said, “but I’m not the only one who knows.”

“Who else?”

“Our favourite cousin.” The two girls looked over at the Slytherin table, at Albus, who was now being accosted by a first year who was pointing at his green eyes and dark hair. Everyone knew the resemblance was uncanny, but nobody knew why Albus had been sorted into Slytherin, but apparently he was cunning enough to discover this secret and sly enough to keep it hidden. Rose had doubted him.

“How does he know?”

“I don’t want to delve into the details, Dominique,” Rose snapped, “I just want to know whether this will get back to me. I want to know whether it will affect me in any way.”

“No, Rosie,” Dominique said, bored and bad-tempered and sarcastic, “this won’t affect you. You can continue to rule the school in peace and...”

“Good,” Rose said, smiling, her voice patronizingly chirpy and bright, “we won’t have to talk about this again, will we?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your prefects.”

“You are one of my prefects, Dominique,” Rose replied sharply, “and I’ll talk to you however I please. I’m not the one having an illicit relationship with a Slytherin.”

Rose could feel Dominique’s rancorous gaze in the back of her head as she turned to welcome more students into the house. She knew her cold, manipulating cousin would be conducting a plan to get revenge – she had the entirety of the male community on her side – but Rose knew she could do no harm. Dominique was clever; a searing knowledge of people rather than facts earned her a begrudging respect from students and teachers, but that didn’t mean she could take down the Head Girl and everything Rose had worked for.

The two cousins watched as a first year scurried towards the Slytherin table. They both spotted Scorpius clapping, his expression bored. They saw his gaze flicker towards Desmarais again, and Rose heard Dominique’s sudden intake of breath. They watched as a man – in a long travelling cloak and carrying a briefcase – leant down by the boy’s shoulder and whispered into his ear. They both left hurriedly after that.

Rose recognized the man. He had been over for dinner once or twice, a colleague of her father’s at the Auror office. They must be here to question the youngest Malfoy about his father and his disappearance.

“What do you think that’s about?” Dominique asked, and Rose was scandalized at the hint of warmth and caring in her tone.

“I couldn’t care less,” Rose snapped and her cousin recoiled.

“I’m sorry if this has ruined your evening,” she replied.

“Oh Dominique,” Rose replied, clapping her hands together as the last few names were called out and food suddenly began filling the dishes in front of her, “I know what this is. It’s a rebellion, just something to relieve tension. It’ll be over before you know it and you’ll move on to more eligible men.”

“Has anyone told you how patronising you are?”

“Oh no, they wouldn’t dare.” Rose turned to face her cousin, sipping victoriously from her goblet. “I could ruin you with this, you know that, don’t you? If you so much as associate this whole… thing… with me, I’ll ruin you.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Rosie.”

“The situation demands it. I want you to understand.”

For a moment, Dominique looked anxious and Rose smirked. When she had become Head Girl, in the exact moment she had received the letter and the badge, Rose had decided on three things that would define her career: one, that heavy petting should not be allowed in the library, two, that Quidditch practices should always end promptly at nine and three, that Dominique Weasley would one day be controlled. She had found her way of doing so. It had fallen into her lap and Albus Potter had been the one who pushed it there.

“You’re mental.”

“You’re funny, Dominique.” Rose laughed, tinkling and high-pitched and perfectly perfect. She pierced a piece of chicken on her fork and lifted it towards her mouth. “I’m sure someone more worthy would appreciate your sense of humour.”

Rose took a careful bite, chewing slowly as she relished the slow reddening of her cousin’s face. She looked less beautiful now, and for a moment, Rose felt more superior than she ever had done. She breathed in and out, delighting in the sense of nostalgia and tradition that had surrounded her. She was ignoring the whispered insults from Dominique, she was back at Hogwarts, she was Head Girl and everything was perfect.

 

 

Scorpius Malfoy lingered outside of the abandoned classroom, waiting impatiently for something to happen. He should have expected this. He should have realised that they would target him when he returned to school. A man in a long travelling cloak and a briefcase had sidled up to him while he was watching the Sorting and asked him to come with him, that he just needed to ask him some questions.

Trying to ignore Elodie’s lingering gaze and the cruel hard stare of Dominique and her cousin, Scorpius had left the room. He didn’t really understand what had happened with the beautiful Gryffindor, why they had started whatever it was they had. 

Scorpius recalled the first time he had seen Dominique Weasley: he remembered that her slender frame, her enchanting looks and her cold, controlling demeanor had captivated him - and the other boys - from the first train ride. She enraptured people from the first look, the first laugh or the first haughty smirk. Scorpius knew that this was just her, and the magical blood that flowed through her veins and her family's generations enhanced her looks and her control over poor, unassuming boys. This was just some otherworldly force that drew him towards the young woman, and her perfect pale skin and enchanting smile...

Scorpius had heard rumours of Dominique’s coldness, the ruthless way in which she would throw boys at her feet and trample on them before tossing them away without a second glance. His dorm-mates had talked of how she couldn’t be with one boy for more than a month, that they would start to fall for her and her beauty and her charm. 

He supposed that she had targeted him as her next conquest, but the way she had spoken to him – it had reminded him too much of his time spent with Elodie. She had whispered sweet nothings into his ear while they kissed, and in the morning he would find himself wrapped up in her arms, her blonde hair and her perfume clouding his senses and he felt the strong need to disappear. 

He had looked at her, sleeping and peaceful, the remnants of last night’s kisses and promises plastered on her lips. With Dominique, there was the animalistic way she grabbed and scratched at him and while at the beginning he had enjoyed the way she snarled and growled, it had grown tiresome. She had become attached to him and soon he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand her any longer.

He should end it. It was completely stupid anyway, just something to relieve tension and hopefully, possibly, maybe get rid of the sound of Elodie telling him she loved him that repeated and replayed over and over in his ear.

Upon hearing two voices in the classroom discussing loudly about his father and mother, Scorpius started to pace up and down. The sounds of chatter and laughter and food being eaten echoed up the staircase to where he was standing. He could hear footsteps.

“Elodie.”

Scorpius couldn’t move as she stepped towards him, her steps small and cautious. The sun was setting behind the mountains and the red and pink light gave her a youthful glow, like she was blushing. It reminded him of the first days of their relationship. It reminded him of when they had been happy.

“What’s going on?”

Scorpius glanced at her. He pulled at his tie, undoing his top button, lifting his heavy robes off his shoulders. He felt hot and the boiling anger pumping through his veins did not help matters. Just looking at her made him uncomfortable.

“I recognized those men,” she continued, and he felt his throat constrict and bile rise up in his chest, “I thought it’d be something about Draco.”

Silence followed her statement and they both waited for the other to speak.

Elodie broke it. “I know I shouldn’t be here, but…” 

“You shouldn’t.” If Potter hadn’t have talked of Dominique, and if their relationship (or fling or affair or dalliance? He wasn’t really sure what to call it) wasn’t fresh on the top of his mind, he might have been harsher towards Elodie. Scorpius tried desperately to think of other things – the look on her face when she had refused him, the condescending looks of her parents, the conversation shared between them the night before – to remind of how much she had hurt him.

“I wanted to be here.”

“I asked you not to talk to me. I thought that was what you wanted.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

There was a lone wooden chair by the door to the classroom and she sat down, smoothing the creases of her uniform as she crossed her legs. Scorpius resumed his pacing, stopping every once in a while to glance at Elodie – stock still but impatient – and at the door to the classroom, where the voices and the argument inside were growing more heated. Before long, Scorpius had grown bored, tired of the waiting, of the ticking of the antique clock and the staring gaze of Elodie. 

He sensed her resentment and her affection. At the Sorting, he had watched her, scrutinizing her beautiful features, and waited for the feelings to abate – for the sight of her to cease eliciting so many different things (resentment, protectiveness, fearfulness, distress, anger, regret, excitement, desire). Scorpius continued to compare her to the plain and pitiful girls, even the proud and haughty features of Madeleine and Genevieve, and found fault with everyone. No one looked or laughed or loved like her, and it was with the same swooping sense of regret and resentment that he remembered he hated her and they could never be.

The picture of Dominique, curled up in the bed next to him with her heavy breathing fluttering her strands of blonde hair, rushed to the front of his mind, and suddenly he felt like screaming. The sound would echo down the corridor, down in the Great Hall, into the ears of the waiting students and teachers. He had been reckless, stupid even. 

They were the same: blonde, beautiful, elegant as the French always are, and both so cold to the touch. Scorpius had found himself another Elodie and he should have realised. He could never let her go.

“I’m sorry,” he said, agitated, pausing his pacing right in front of her chair, “but why are you here again?”

"I care."

Something on Scorpius' face rippled, as it were a lake that someone had just thrown a huge rock into the centre of. Just saying those words, Elodie felt, could disclose something within her. It was a whimsical thought, but she honestly believed that the words had exposed her.

Elodie had hoped that she had laced them with cold indifference and sarcasm, that Scorpius would be too distracted by the impending questioning to realise that her voice had slipped back into the affectionate tone that had clouded their conversations before last Christmas. Horror seized her as his facial expression changed, as he slumped into the chair on the other side of the doorway, as they both slipped into the uncomfortable silence that had plagued their summer and their search for his father.

His fingers twitched, and Elodie could see the square shaped packet of his cigarettes through his school trousers. She could tell he desperately wanted to be outside in the darkening grounds, the white stick between his lips and the hot, harsh smoke delving into his lungs. He didn’t want to here, with her, waiting for two men to stop arguing so they could pester him with questions about a father he didn’t know or cared about.

"You don't."

"You're right." And with that they were back: lodged together in a mindless ongoing battle that tormented and tortured them but neither could retreat from. Elodie smirked.

"Why are you here?" Scorpius repeated.

"Because I want to know whether I wasted an entire summer with you. I want to know whether it was worth it."

"No one made you come."

"You used to though, didn't you?"

Scorpius felt the breath leave his lungs in a glorious mixture of desire and hatred. He looked over at her - painfully far away - and he felt it, raw and vehement, building up inside of him: attraction, complete and utter infatuation. And suddenly, he didn't care about where his father was, what Dominique was doing, whether his mother was choking on her own blood - he just cared about Elodie, and holding and having her in his arms. Taking her.

He even made to move towards her, his hands aching with the distance but she smirked again, slipping away from him and standing up. Her face was shady from the dwindling light, but Scorpius could make out the curve of her lips and her bright eyes. Even in her frumpy uniform and her black robes, he still desired her.

And then the door opened, and candlelight spilled out onto the cold corridor. Scorpius blinked and stared up into the face of the non-descript Auror before focusing back on Elodie. The light seemed to have cleared his head – she looked harsher and more angular in the light, more sincere and uptight, more like the bitch that had rejected him. He clenched his jaw.

“Mr Malfoy?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded unnatural.

“And who’s this?”

Scorpius felt the pinch of Elodie’s nails on his skin as she gripped his hand and although he couldn’t face her, he could tell she was stretching her lips into a wide, bright smile that fooled no one. The sweat pooled between their palms, uncomfortably hot and clammy. Scorpius tried to escape, but she kept him under her tight control.

“I’m his girlfriend.”

“I’m not sure whether you should be here, missy,” one Auror – burly, wearing heavy grey robes and sporting a wild beard – said kindly, as if talking to a small child, “this only concerns Mr Malfoy.”

Another pinch, harder this time, and it forced Scorpius to relent.

“I want her here.” His lips formed the words before he had time to stop himself. The grip on his fingers loosened. The heat dissipated. Elodie stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.

“Well come on in then. I’m guessing you understand why you’re here?”

“It’s to do with his father, isn’t it?”

“Yes. His disappearance. His possible kidnapping.”

They stepped into the classroom. Elodie was still holding Scorpius’ hand, and he was still gazing ahead, confused by the way she had acted, by the lights, by the impending conversation. Her skin against his.

The door to the classroom shut with a slam, and it echoed briefly around the silent corridor. The voices and laughs of the returning students drifted upwards from the hall: happy to be back, to be with people they loved and looked after, to be together after a long summer full of warm breezes and sunshine and picnics. For some, they were excited for the year ahead: nervous for exams, craving the Quidditch pitch, longing for new gossip and stories. 

For others, it would bring much more.


	7. VII

Stretching his arms wide, Scorpius Malfoy’s hands met the cold stone of the window’s edge. He watched as an owl swooped freely into the night sky. The sun had set hours ago, a great golden globe disappearing behind the shadows of the forest, and the Aurors had still not finished their questioning.

“And he didn’t write to you? No messages, no letters?”

Scorpius turned, facing towards the two men. One had lit a pipe and the smoke trickled upwards, mingling with the dust and darkness of the old classroom. The other, lounging languidly across the desk, was leafing through a folder. Scorpius had told them over and over again that he didn't know where his father was, and that he expressly didn't care. 

As he had said it, Elodie had turned to face him, her face a perfect myriad of emotions and conflict - only she knew his deepest, blackest thoughts about his father. She had heard them, whispered to her in the dark of night, her body lying flat against his, their fingers and hearts entwined.

_"I miss him,"_ he had said, and she had laughed. She pushed his hair back from his forehead before replying. _"He's down the corridor, Scor, how can you miss him?"_

Scorpius had found that a new world was opening to him: a new kind of intimacy that was as heady and exhilarating as the more physical aspects to their relationship. It was usually at night, when they lay in each other's arms, that their conversations had begun. It was in these conversations - halting at first, neither wanting to be the first to admit any type of vulnerability - that they stumbled into honesty.

And of course, it was this brutal honesty that had destroyed them.

_“It’s different,”_ Scorpius had continued, and the affronted tone to his voice had caused Elodie to wrap her arms around him in apology, _“he doesn’t talk to anyone… he’s just always away, doing other things…”_

_“And what does he say to you?”_

_“Nothing.”_ He had found it easier to whisper into her skin rather than look into her eyes. Her intensity had scared him and her slight smirk still haunted his memory – like Elodie was proud she was the one he was sharing his innermost secrets with.

_“Do you mind?”_

_“No,”_ he had replied quickly, _“not at all. I used to feel like I had to impress him, like I needed him to be proud of me… but I grew out of it, I suppose. Realised that I shouldn’t bother.”_

He felt her press a small kiss to his shoulder, and the action encouraged him. _“I wondered what I would do if my mother is worse than we think, if she did die,”_ he had continued, _“if I was left alone with him…”_

_“And?”_ Her voice had been small and quiet as if she felt he would stop talking, get frightened that he was revealing too much to her, or believe himself too proud to open up like this, if she interrupted him.

_“I don’t know. He’d probably indoctrinate me into the company or the Death Eaters so something ridiculous like that.”_

_“Don’t be stupid, Scor,”_ Elodie had said, lifting her head off his chest to gaze into his eyes, _“tell me.”_

There had been a pause and Scorpius had felt her grasp on his arm tighten, whether in encouragement or as a comforting or possessive gesture, he hadn’t known. Her great desire to know every inch of him had startled Scorpius, and he shifted away from her, pulling the blankets over him. Sensing the end of the conversation, Elodie had retreated too and the warmth had gone away with her.

Looking at her now, stern and sensible in the candlelight, it was impossible to believe that warmth and love and kindness had ever emanated from her. She had come with him to search for his father. They had spent night after night fruitlessly looking through deserted hotels and calling on distant relatives and long gone family friends. They had barely spoken and when they did, the words were harsh and spiteful - perhaps she thought that being questioned and interviewed by Aurors gave the whole situation some finality, that she wouldn’t have to fraternize with Scorpius any more, that they would be able to simply sink into the simmering silence of ancient enemies.

“No, nothing like that.”

“And he hasn’t spoken to your mother?”

“Even I don’t speak to my mother.”

A vision of Astoria, elegant and smiling, flashed through his mind and he watched with horror as her skin disintegrated and her flesh rotted: aging, dying, decaying – like her health and her beauty were some metaphor for the state of the Malfoy name, or of their lives.

“And you haven’t been to his work? Spoken to any of his colleagues?”

“I thought you would be doing that, obviously,” Scorpius replied, and he couldn’t help but let the disdain seep through his words. The two Aurors shifted uncomfortably. Elodie was staring at him.

“No relations? Estranged family members or old school friends?”

“No.”

The room fell silent again. His eyes felt heavy as he lifted them to meet Elodie's gaze and he watched as she rolled her eyes at the Aurors' incapability. He smiled and so did she - finally they had something to mock aside from each other - but it felt strange and so Scorpius forced his eyes away to glare at the incompetent Auror. 

He had introduced himself as Jones.

“We just want to know when you last saw him,” Jones continued, “get a time frame for the whole event.”

“January. I last saw him in January.”

“That was nine months ago.”

“Like I said, he’s an attentive father.”

The two Aurors exchanged glances and Scorpius could tell what they were thinking: they didn’t want to be here, they’d rather be sitting in the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks downing some mead instead of questioning some upstart little brat in a cold classroom.

“Excuse me,” Elodie said and Scorpius turned, surprised, to look at her, “but why haven’t you asked him these questions before? Mr Malfoy went missing over two months ago.”

From his position by the window, Scorpius could read every expression on her face; no one watches her like he does, no one pays as much attention to the ever-shifting expressions of her haughty face like he does, no one sees the way she looks at her friends, how fiercely she lays down the foundations of her future, and how hard she will fight to attain her goals quite like he does. He could see it building now: that same determination he had faced at the platform at the beginning of summer, the same grit she had used to reject him last Christmas… all of it covered up with a brief, beautiful smile that feigned politeness and made you believe that she actually cared at all.

There was odd pulling feeling in his stomach as he watched her defend him. He felt his head spin. Sweat glistened on his brow. He turned quickly to face the window and fumbled with the fastening, opening his mouth wide when he could finally breathe in the cold, fresh air.

“Mr Malfoy?”

“Listen, Mr Jones,” Elodie continued, “there’s clearly no point in this. Scorpius is not cooperating and I really think this should wait until you have at least done some preliminary questioning of the people who actually knew him.”

The two Aurors didn’t even argue. The other Auror – not Jones – chuckled silently at her defiance as she straightened her school skirt primly.

"Very well, Mr Malfoy," said Jones, shutting his folder with finality, "you are free to go. You too, Miss Desmarais.”

The sound of Elodie’s chair on the floorboard flooded Scorpius’ ears. He watched, his eyes unfocused and staring, as she made pleasantries with Jones, even going so far as to shake his hand.

"Did you have a nice time in Asia?" The voice hit him from behind, surprising him, and Scorpius almost flinched.

"Oh yes," Scorpius said, careful in case any accidental sarcasm slipped out, "it was brilliant, really. Quite excellent."

"Where did you go?"

"The Great Wall, obviously," Scorpius began and he struggled to remember the leaflets he had read in preparation for the trip he was going to take before his father disappeared. "We visited India, Sri Lanka, Japan..."

"Your girlfriend's cousin in France? The sites of Paris?"

Scorpius didn't say anything but instead stared at his feet. Scorpius and Elodie hadn’t been in Asia, or even France. The Auror might as well have tapped his nose in the immature way of self-confident teenage girls, but instead he continued talking, his voice smug and pretentious.

“I’ve been talking to Miss Desmarais’ parents and they had some things to say about you.”

“Nice things, I hope.”

“They were very enthusiastic to share their views on your father and you, Mr Malfoy.”

“I’m sure they were.”

“They said some nasty things,” the Auror said, and he leaned closer and Scorpius could smell old tobacco smoke and the strong scent of firewhiskey, “but they never said you were a liar.”

“What’s the problem? So I was in France instead of Asia, what does it matter?”

“On the contrary Mr Malfoy, it matters very much,” the Auror said, “what if we find your father in France? What if he is found in Asia? If you’re lying about something as trivial as where you went on holiday, then surely you could be lying about other, more substantial things…”

“Like where my father is actually hidden?” Scorpius added, sarcastically. “Yes, I’m very likely to know that, seeing as he hasn’t spoken to me in months.”

“Well,” the Auror said, screwing a cigar between his lips and Scorpius felt the great desire to disappear into the grounds and smoke a whole packet of cigarettes, “I’m sure there’s a reason for that.”

And with that, the Auror swept out into the corridor and waited silently for his colleague. Scorpius and Elodie bundled after them.

“Thank you,” Jones said, “we’ll be in contact.”

Scorpius nodded, turning to meet Elodie’s gaze as the Aurors disappeared down the corridor. She smiled at him in a sad, condescending way, gripping her hands together and swinging slightly on her feet. He rolled his eyes. 

“You didn’t have to defend me.”

“Of course I did, Scor,” Elodie said, and he tried to ignore the brightness to her voice, as if the answer was obvious, “you didn’t want to be there and the Aurors weren’t listening to you.”

“And so you took control?”

“Somebody needed to.”

They stood awkwardly in the empty corridor, the sounds of welcoming feasts still far away. She wrapped her arms around her to protect herself from the impending chill. 

“It was embarrassing,” Scorpius continued.

“I was playing the loving girlfriend.”

“Well you’re very good at it.”

“Thank you. I’ve had some practice.”

“A little domestic? How charming.”

Scorpius and Elodie turned, only to find Dominique Weasley standing at the stop of the stairs: her white blonde still shining in the dim light, a coy smile planted over her red lips. Elodie was the first to react, smiling politely at the sight of her. Scorpius merely stood there – the similarities and differences between the two young women were finally very clear to him.

“Bonjour. Comment allez-vous?” Dominique began, the foreign words flowing from her lips.

“Je vais bien, merci.”

“Ton petit ami est très beau.”

“Tu peux l'avoir.”

“J'ai l'intention de l'avoir.”

The conversation passed quickly, and Scorpius stood stock still in between the two girls. Dominique was easier to read than Elodie, he could understand her body language, uncover her emotions from the flicker of her eyes or the way she kissed him – but the different language had thrown him. She had seemed to slip into a different skin.

They had both turned to face him, both expecting him to say something.

And he couldn’t. 

 

 

Scorpius Malfoy had been finding himself lost in moments. Since the evening of the welcome feast, he would find himself staring into a person's face, see their mouths moving with vigour or in an undertone and he would not comprehend a single word. Other people would laugh and he would just stand, looking intently at their faces, wondering whether they are really as bland as they seem. The wide, open faces of the people around him perplexed him; they walked around unarmed, not expecting a fight. They told their secrets to anyone who listens. His secrets, however, were heavy. They pressed down on his shoulders and his senses and the only person who could share the load had gone.

He had left both the girls on the empty corridor on that night, and mumbled a vague excuse about meeting his friends back at the house. He hadn’t wanted to explain to Elodie why Dominique was talking to him and he hadn’t wanted to spend the night with Dominique. He hadn’t seen her since then and there had been one week of perfect, undisturbed silence. 

“Scorpius.” A voice whispered from the shadows, and Scorpius pulled his gaze away from Elodie and into the darkness of an alcove, hidden by ivy in a secluded corner of the courtyard. He caught the scent of French perfume and a glance of the white blonde hair, the long red fingernails and the familiar sense of boredom and irritation surrounded him. Dominique. Again.

“You’re looking at her again,” she whispered as he entered the dark space, her hands automatically finding their way to his chest. He followed the routine and his hands slipped around her waist as he obligingly kissed her neck. He heard her breath quicken and the sound disgusted him.

"And?" Scorpius murmured. He had to force himself to retain some illusion of politeness. He had force himself to remember that the girl was beautiful. 

"I don't like it." 

"But you always look at Oscar Moore."

"That's different," she replied hastily, her voice a petulant whine, "that's part of my scheme to ruin Rosie." 

"Of course it is."

She pressed her lips to his - frenzied and impatient - and he marveled at how much her preferred her when she wasn't talking. Dominique's fingers had found their way to his belt buckle but he encircled her thin wrists with his hands and pulled them off. Instead they stuck like magnets to his shoulders. 

"Scorpius..." she whispered coyly, her fingers toying with his collar, "what's wrong?"

Scorpius looked at Dominique, at her fair hair and beautiful features, and he wondered why people wanted to be in his position, why people wanted to know her. Behind the pale skin and perfect complexion, she was nothing: as vapid and irritating as the girls she thought herself superior to. He could feel Dominique's lips on his jaw, creeping slowly along the bone until they reached the corner of his mouth. He resisted the strong urge to wipe away the small trail of saliva she had left there.

"No."

"Why not?" 

“Because we’re in the courtyard… someone could see.”

“So?” She was loosening his tie.

“So,” he said with finality, “I don’t want to risk it.”

She raked her fingernails through his hair, her face pressed uncomfortably close to his. “Why, are you ashamed of me?”

“Your family would be.”

“I don’t care what my family thinks,” she said, in a brave voice that Scorpius didn’t buy. “And I haven’t seen you in so long…”

She spotted his reaction – cold, aloof, disbelieving – and she stepped away from him and he finally felt a sense of freedom, like he could finally breath. 

“This is about Elodie.”

“It’s not,” Scorpius tried to argue, but Dominique was already stepping out of the alcove and he found himself following her. “You’re being stupid. You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Of course not,” Dominique replied. She turned sharply and dug her fingers into his chest. He could feel her nails grip at his skin. 

“I’m not your boyfriend,” Scorpius said, leaning in close to whisper to her. 

“I didn’t say you were.”

“But you’re acting like I am.”

They parted quickly as a first year attempted to get past them and from his position further away, Scorpius appreciated how beautiful Dominique Weasley truly was. The weather suited her – not just her personality, which was as bitter and resilient as the winter winds, but the cold brought a flushing blush to her cheeks, made strands of her blonde hair fly out of their ponytail, made her lips pink and bright against her pale skin. 

Scorpius recalled the first time he had seen Dominique Weasley: he remembered that her slender frame, her enchanting looks and her controlling demeanor had captivated him - and the other boys - from the first train ride. She enraptured people from the first look, the first laugh or the first haughty smirk. Scorpius knew that this was just her, and the magical blood that flowed through her veins and her family's generations enhanced her looks and her control over poor, unassuming boys. This was just some otherworldly force that drew him towards the young woman, and her perfect pale skin and hypnotizing smile...

The perfect picture – the idea of her – had tempted him, even through his days with Elodie, but Dominique had been the girl everyone desired and wanted, and that no one could resist. But now, now he _had_ her, she was dull and boring, exquisitely needy, obnoxious and harsh. 

And he didn’t want her anymore.

“I’m not your boyfriend, Dominique.”

She looked at him through her eyelashes – the look she probably employed on poor unsuspecting victims before the kill. Scorpius supposed she thought that it would change his mind.

“And I don’t want to be.”

And then she was racing across the courtyard, and Scorpius wasn’t sure whether to follow her: people would see, people would judge, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted her - but she had turned around, blue eyes piercing cold and glaring and she was clearly disappointed that he had not come after her. 

He felt a glorious sense of freedom when she finally walked away, back into the cool corridors of the castle, back to where she truly belonged. Not with him. Spotting Albus Potter from across the courtyard, Scorpius ambled over and tried to maintain a stony, indifferent expression as he pretended not to be impressed by the boy’s choice of book.

“Potter.”

Albus Potter had read, somewhere, that the human brain allocates a certain square footage to those people who were significant in a person's life. It had appealed to him, to know that there was a miniscule space of his family's brains that was his alone. He hoped that a small part of his grandfather's brain - now rotting and decomposing under the earth - would have been reserved for him. He hoped his section would have been larger, perhaps a little more active, than those associated with his other cousins. He knew and understood that the part would be non-existent in their brains (his space would have been filled instead with thoughts of their own reflection or whichever victim they were currently pursuing). It would be equally defunct within the craniums of Scorpius and Elodie and the other people in the school.

Or so he thought.

He was reading now, legs crossed, on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard. When there was a dull point in the novel – when a particularly boring heroine was making a long speech or when the prose just seemed too complicated to understand – Albus would fold down the page and look around at his classmates. There were first years shivering and twitching under their gigantic new robes, Quidditch players laughing and playing with Quaffles, girls giggling and simpering over their latest copy of Witch Weekly. He was being ignored, as usual, and was quite happy in his quiet little bubble – a bubble brutally broken by a blond boy with an impossibly glum look on his face.

“Oh, hello,” he answered timidly.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Albus’ mouth opened and closed as he stared at the young man in front of him. Just days ago, Malfoy had told him that his relationship with Elodie – a story and subject that had fuelled Albus’ life for so long – had ended. The finality of the boy’s voice had startled him, as if he had been telling the truth, and Albus couldn’t help but feel the repugnant swoop of despondency at his words. Albus had wondered whether this obsession would ever cease, whether Elodie Desmarais and Scorpius Malfoy would ever grow tiresome or boring, whether they would be able to restart and refuel their relationship, whether Albus could ever stop living vicariously through them. He had wondered whether he was in love with them, or more the idea of them – but love was a strong word, and so was obsession. He would have called it friendship, but the word suggested emotions, and a state of mutual trust and support that neither party could ever provide.

But now, Malfoy was here, staring down at him, eyes flicking along the title of his book, a cigarette twisting in his pale fingers. Albus had obviously seen him following Dominique across the courtyard, looking angry and annoyed (although everyone seemed to adopt the expression when forced into her company). The moment he approached, he sensed Malfoy relaxing his posture and he felt an even stronger wave of guilt; it was the look of someone who could finally relax in the presence of people he didn't have to impress.

“All right.”

Malfoy sat down next to him, plucking the book smoothly from Albus’ grasp. Watching him as he flicked through the pages, Albus wondered whether the young man had come over to him simply to discuss books and literature. 

“You don’t like your family, do you?” Malfoy said, handing the book back and lighting his cigarette, ignoring the obvious looks of contempt from his classmates. Albus was surprised by the question – his roommate had never shown any interest in his personal life before, especially his family, but he supposed that had all changed when he started sleeping with them.

_“Let’s not turn this into some sort of bonding session,”_ Albus mimicked, picking at the corners of his book nervously, feeling for all the world like a young child being patronized by his older, cooler, more world-wise brother. For a while, they stood in silence: Scorpius embarrassed by the dressing-down he had just received from someone who barely ever spoke and Albus embarrassed by the strength of his response.

They both watched as a boy threw a Quaffle to his teammate, but it flew through his outstretched arms and landed at Malfoy’s feet. They both watched their reactions: a whispered argument, several pointing fingers, a disgruntled look in Scorpius’ direction as if he had some hideous disease that could be contagious. They both watched as one boy finally took control, striding purposefully towards the fountain where they were seated.

“Could you pass me it?”

Albus watched Malfoy’s face, eyes staring into the young boy’s, as he bent to pick it up. He tossed it a few times in his hands before handing it back. The boy ran off and once he had returned to his group, Albus couldn’t help but look as they glanced back at him, pointed at their forearms, gingerly accepted the Quaffle as if it was contaminated.

“I’m sorry,” Albus said.

“It’s not your fault.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence. Albus felt so uneasy and self-conscious that he wanted to dive back into the fantasy world of his novel, or return to the comfort of his four-poster or the safety of the library. He knew so much about Malfoy’s life and yet here he was, making very little conversation with a young man who didn’t know how much he cared.

“I’m guessing you don’t like your family either?” Albus asked, while Malfoy smiled wryly and lit another cigarette. The smoke made his eyes sting.

“You haven’t told anyone about Dominique, have you?” The question took Albus by surprise. It seemed that Malfoy had grown bored of the ‘bonding’, and moved onto the real reason he had sat with Albus in the first place.

“No.”

“Good.”

Albus scrutinized him. He should have assumed that there would be no further conversation between them but he knew he would never be able to resist editorialising the entire situation. “This is about Elodie, isn’t it?”

Scorpius Malfoy disagreed feebly, noting the way his heart sped up and his stomach sank at the sight of Elodie from across the courtyard, flanked by Genevieve and Madeleine. Elodie had always caused an inevitable change in him; her light would filter into his skin, would cause a scarcely discernible change in his physiology. She would overwhelm his senses, until he could make out only parts of her: the coquettish eyes, the hair that never seemed to end, and a crooked smile. 

“We’re over.”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m trying to ignore the disbelieving tone in your voice.”

“Good luck.”

Scorpius had forgotten what Elodie was like when she was happy and lively - their interactions were too marred by their disdain for one another - and so seeing her now, smiling and laughing, he felt an innate sense of awe at her presence. He wanted that: to be happy and laughing, to be surrounded by people he considered friends, not stuck in a school full of spoilt, ungrateful children who glared at him from every direction.

Or, in Potter’s case, stared at him.

“But you definitely haven’t told anyone.”

“Who would I tell?”

A tinkling laugh twittered across the courtyard as Rose Weasley passed through the crowds, smiling gracefully, her red hair shining with an almost unearthly gleam. Scorpius saw Albus’ lip curl as she passed them, followed by her usual army of mortal peasants.

“Well, I’m glad we’ve sorted that out.”

“I’m glad we could have this little chat.”

“I’ll just leave you to read your book and glare at your relatives. Have a good day.”

Albus watched as Malfoy got up and left. It was still so new, so subversive and experimental, that Albus did not quite know what to make of it. Surely the worst thing he could do would be to prematurely voice these strange thoughts that had been entering his head recently: the strange connections he had been forging with people that his family would never approve of.

He failed to discern Rose’s gaze as she followed Scorpius across the courtyard. He failed to notice the flicker of fascination spark within her, just as she failed to realise how much it would burn her.


	8. VIII

Rose Weasley was lurking around the entrance to the dungeons, hidden from view by a large statue of some prominent potioneer, and watched as her classmates piled in the classroom. Her heart was beating ferociously, but it subsided as the last few people trickled in and the door shut with a heavy slam.

It had been a rather sudden change of heart, in comparison with her usual need to analyse everything from different angles. Rose usually predicted every single possible outcome, every advantage and disadvantage, what her choice would mean in the long run. Her whole life had been a strict regime of rules and regulations, and it had worked for her.

But her decision to befriend Scorpius Malfoy had been rushed. It had been almost instantaneous, and when the idea had planted itself in her subconscious, it had grown and grown like an infection or a particularly resilient weed and she had almost surprised herself with her determination to see her mission completed. Rose supposed the concept of helping the weak and defenceless had been lodged her mind unconsciously - she sometimes found herself concocting plans about turning her cousin Albus on to the right path - but she never thought that the ideas would come to fruition, and with someone so remarkably far from her comfortable inner circle.

Helping people was in her nature: that was why she was Head Girl, not that her mother was on the board of governors or that her uncle saved the Wizarding World. She would often be seen strolling the corridors with first-years, instructing them on the correct way to brew a boil cure potion, or comforting some love struck fourth-year when her crush ignored her. Rose Weasley was the very definition of caring and giving.

She supposed Scorpius Malfoy was just another one of those lost souls, in desperate need of guidance. His father, his own house and most of all the seductive and frivolous behaviour of her own cousin had led him astray. Rose had grimaced at the cigarettes he smoked almost hourly, and she disapproved of the silly Muggle novels he pored over and his positively unhealthy relationship with Elodie Desmarais. To her, most definitely, most assuredly, he was another project, nothing more. This was a new challenge for her. She'd never done a Slytherin before.

But it was not without hard work: plenty of planning had gone into the idea, nights spent lying awake in her bed, cogs whirring in her brain. The Malfoy heir was a famous recluse - no one knew much about him, apart from what was splashed about in newspaper: only son born into family that once had money and power but had made all wrong choices. School gossip had failed her; she had found out only minute details of his relationship with Desmarais, and a lot of other rumours that either contradicted themselves or were just plain ridiculous. Her own research had got her nowhere, aside from extra facts surrounding his family’s history and their involvement with the Dark Lord.

She imagined, briefly, what his childhood would have been like, cooped up in the hallowed halls of Malfoy Manor with only a house elf for company. His presence would have been required at various engagements and his mother would have fawned and cooed over him in front of others, but when the night came and they returned home, she would abandon him. He would have been thrust into the arms of a waiting nanny and the rest of evening would be spent lying in a cold bed waiting for sleep to take him.

In comparison, her own childhood had been a world of colour and happiness and when she looked back on it, it seemed only to made up of sunny days and summer nights. Her parents loved and adored her, and her massive extended family made sure that she was never lonely, that there was always someone there for her... not that she ever needed anyone, of course, but it was nice to know they were _there_.

And when Rose felt that maybe her decision wasn't born out of a desire to help the suffering, but of a familiar, far baser instinct - her jealously of her cousin - she was visited by a memory so intense and real that it felt as if she were living it again for the first time.

She had been sixteen and it was, like it always seemed to be when she recalled her childhood memories, summer. The sun had just set, and the air had been filled with the smell of freshly cut grass and the grunts of the gnomes that still waddled around the Burrow. She wandered lazily through the garden as her footsteps took her up towards the orchard and then she looked back, towards the rest of her family, and watched as they moved back into the house. Lights were lit in various windows and darkness fell.

She looked back on the day they had spent at the lake, wrapping her wet hair into a bun. Victoire and Dominique had started an argument; one of them had borrowed the other’s swimming costume without asking and apparently that rewarded a fully blown shouting match complete with comparisons with hippogriffs and wishing that the other was in Slytherin. It was petty, even by Rose’s standards, and her and her cousins had merely stood and watched. Victoire had begun to cry: fat, ugly tears had trickled down her porcelain face and Teddy, the ever-loving boyfriend, had rushed to her aid.

Rose had found them when she finally reached the orchard. They were locked in some naked embrace, legs and arms wrapped so tightly around each other that she thought they could be one being. A warm breeze brushed the leaves and trees around them, and suddenly the air was filled with the sweaty scent of betrayal and the sighs of the two teenagers. Rose felt bile rise up in her throat, but her disgust was accompanied with a strange jealously and an even more morbid curiosity. She touched her fingers to her own lips, which had never once graced anyone else’s.

“Rose!”

And when they finally realised that she had been standing there, she had ran down the hill at full pelt, leaving Teddy and Dominique to struggle with their clothes and their secrets. Rose had hidden in her room for the rest of the evening, on the pretence of being tired, and when she heard Dominique creep in at way passed midnight, she had nothing to say to her. In the morning, Rose had put on her best and shortest dress, borrowed a tube of lipstick from her cousin, and walked into the nearest town. 

Still squashed behind the statue, Rose once again touched her fingers to her lips. Her first kiss had always been something she thought she would treasure, but instead the memory plagued her. The boy had been tall and stocky (not at all the elegant and well defined man she had envisioned in her school girl dreams) and she hadn’t enjoyed it.

Dominique had never talked to her about that night in the orchard. She had assumed, in that wonderful childhood fashion that secrets were secrets and should not be spread, that Rose would keep the memory hidden. And Rose did, until Dominique decided to get drunk and tell the entire Ravenclaw Quidditch team that Rose was a stuck-up virgin, and then she had accidentally spilt the secret into the school rumour mill.

Although she would never admit it - not to her family, not to Oscar, not to anyone - her desire and her need to keep up with her cousin had started when they were small. Dominique was the first to read, to walk, to perfect the beauteous hair flip that would have so many on their knees.

And so Scorpius Malfoy was just another thing she needed, and Rose was determined that she would hold onto him longer than Dominique had.

Rose knew, from her observations of him in the past few days, that Scorpius would sit alone in class. In potions (the only class they shared) he inhabited a small table at the back of the class. She assumed that if she was late, if the other chairs and tables where she usually sat had been filled with other students, she would have no choice but to sit next to Malfoy, at the only spare seat in the room. No one else would dare sit there, not even his housemates, and so she would be free to introduce herself, make conversation, and then win.

She crept out from behind the statue, making sure absolutely no one was looking. She rearranged her hair and her skirt, patted her cheeks twice and started to breathe heavily before opening the door to the classroom. 

“Ah, Miss Weasley...”

“I’m sorry sir, I had to talk to Professor Childray. Something about an extra NEWT.”

“Very well. Please take a seat.”

 

 

Several months ago - long before the Christmas that had ruined everything - Elodie Desmarais had returned from a family dinner, only to find Scorpius’ bedroom empty. He had tucked himself away in his father's study, sitting on the sofa and reading a book with such an intense focus that Elodie positively ached with her sense of his beauty. A part of her almost resented him for hiding the beautiful curve of his cheek and the slant of his eye away in a back room, but as her eyes travelled down the curve of his shoulders and the sprinkling of dark hairs on his exposed arms, she had felt a wave of possessive panic. If only they could have been alone like that forever.

Elodie felt the same feeling, looking at Scorpius now, his face half in shadow from the vaulted ceiling and grimy windows of the dungeon classroom. It made her sad, almost, to think of a time when they were happy, and they were together.

At the beginning, she had suspected there was something profoundly wrong with her: something inherently cold. Her own mother had been unsympathetic and almost annoyingly elegant - the cry of a baby or squeal of a child had repelled her - and so Elodie’s childhood had been spent in uncomfortable dresses or in her room.

Of all the men she had been with, only Scorpius truly understood that she was, at her core, cool. Scorpius had said he hadn't minded; that he had preferred it that way. _Emotions are messy,_ he had had said, as he pressed his lips against her skin, _it’s easier this way._ In moments when he was too far away from her, she would simply remind herself that she and Scorpius liked standing alone, belonging to themselves first and to their relationship second. And so the early days of their relationship had been defined by a chilly aloof quality that had suited both of them. Elodie had at first called it maturity, but when she found herself feeling lonely, the hard lines of it had terrified her. 

She remembered tentatively asking whether they could be anything more. It had been winter and she had rushed into the dormitory, tears streaming down her face, and collapsed into his arms. (She had cringed later at her melodramatic entrance, at his bewildered stare). Scorpius had seemed hesitant at first, before he wrapped his arms tight around her, and they stayed silent for what seemed like an age.

Looking back on it, the reason for her meltdown had seemed ridiculous - some argument with her mother about some dreary occasion where she was meant to escort some dreary boy around a ballroom. She had refused, and they had argued. A hatefully spiteful letter had been received and Elodie had found herself alone; Madeleine and Genevieve had always enjoyed those events and the social etiquette that came with them and so could not sympathise. Elodie had needed someone to speak to, and he had been there. The moment had changed the dynamic of their relationship drastically.

It was strange, at first, to be so heavily dependent on someone as Elodie was on Scorpius. She had begun to find her friends boring and vapid, their talk of boys and betrothals becoming simply white noise in her ears, and longed for the days and nights spent in his company.

Elodie opened her book to the correct page, trying to avoid looking at the far corner where Scorpius was seated. She wouldn’t tell anyone, but losing that dependency was the worst night of her life. She had no one now.

“Elodie?”

The sound of her name broke her reverie. “Yes?”

“Surely people will realise you aren’t together if you sit apart all the time.”

“We’re having an argument,” Elodie replied, and she had trouble keeping a sardonic tone from creeping through her words. 

“It seems like you’re arguing all the time,” Madeleine replied. Elodie stared at the girls’ faces; they were both beautiful, painfully so, and their pale skin and dark hair shone more brightly in the dark light of the dungeons. They were classical, elegant - a remnant of a lost era when your social status depended on the purity of your blood rather than which side you chose - and they looked more at home here, in the damp and the cold, surrounded by the eyes of dead animals suspended in liquid. But Elodie could point out the faults in them: the dark circles under Genevieve’s eyes, the rough and bitten nail beds of Madeleine’s fingers, and suddenly they seemed less than the perfect people they pretended to be, and more like mere mortals. The images made Elodie feel more superior, more in control.

“We are.”

Madeleine sighed, and Genevieve rolled her eyes. Elodie turned to listen to the teacher as he explained the potion they were making today, ignoring the scandalised whispers of her friends. She was bored of them, and of their ridiculous conversations. Even for Elodie, who had perfected the fake smile eons ago, it was hard to be consistent. She still found herself longing for Scorpius, even just for some civilised conversation, and it made it even harder that she was pretending to be with him.

“Ah, Miss Weasley...”

“I’m sorry sir, I had to talk to Professor Childray. Something about an extra NEWT.”

“Very well. Please take a seat.”

_Ageing potion,_ the blackboard said, and Elodie began to scribble down some notes. _Causes the drinker to age substantially. The more potion the drinker consumes, the more..._

“I can’t believe it,” Madeleine said, and Genevieve murmured her agreement.. Elodie ignored her. They were probably talking about some rumour about somebody vaguely interesting. Ultimately, it wasn’t worth her time. She continued to write. _The effects of the potion are considered to be temporary. Other magical charms can detect theses effects, for example an..._

Someone poked her elbow and the quill slipped.

“I’m sure it’s frightfully interesting, but I really should...”

Elodie had never though of herself as a jealous person. There had never been any reason for her to envy someone else, although several times she had found herself staring the shininess of Dominique Weasley’s hair or the affectionate way mothers would hug their children at the train station. So when she felt an unusual twinge in her stomach at the sight of Rose Weasley, standing next to Scorpius, she supposed it was something she ate. Being jealous was undignified.

Scorpius didn’t even look at Rose, and Elodie felt a triumphant smile grace her features. She watched as the other girl attempted to get his attention, going so far as to cock her hip and sigh loudly, and Elodie frowned at her petty and petulant nature.

The Head Girl’s voice was muffled by the noise of the classroom. “Excuse me.”

Scorpius turned his head, and he looked more beautiful than before.

“May I sit there?”

Elodie knew at that instant that Rose was not as oblivious as she appeared; she could see that Rose felt the flush of embarrassment that comes with ideas above one's station. It was humiliating for her to have to ask Scorpius for permission to sit next to him. With any other person, they would remove their bag and sweep the seat down before offering it to her on their knees. She was the Head Girl. She was Rose Weasley. If you didn’t, a rumour about your sexual attitudes or your father’s exploits would be sweeping the school by the next day.

Worse was the knowledge that Scorpius was achingly aware of his power. For a moment, Elodie wondered whether he would lash out. But, strangely, he held his tongue. He would never bother with someone as trivial as Rose Weasley.

And with that thought, that very optimistic thought, Elodie returned her focus to the blackboard.

 

 

_Ageing potion causes the drinker to age substantially. The more potion the drinker consumes, the more he or she ages. The effects of the potion are considered to be temporary. Other magical charms can detect theses effects, for example an age line._

Albus Potter closed his book and, with a surprising level of care, made sure that his quill and his parchment were aligned at perfect right angles. His cauldron sat in front of him, clean and polished, and his ingredients were arranged in height order next to it. He reached up to smooth his hair down and straighten his tie, and then turned to stare at the empty chair beside him.

He imagined, for a moment, before the teacher began speaking and his mind would try and comprehend the complicity of the lesson’s potion, what it would be like if someone had chosen to sit next to him. Albus knew, obviously, that he would be shy and incoherent, his voice a mere mutter, and the person would widen their eyes at his odd disposition. He would dread to think what would happen if Genevieve or Madeleine - or, Merlin forbid, Elodie - had decided to sit next to him.

He found himself miming lines to himself; he smirked and cocked his eyebrows, opening and closing his lips so the flirtatious words and coquettish sentences flowed mutely from his mouth. He gestured lazily to the seat next to him, and even ran his fingers through his hair like he had seen Malfoy do. Only when he saw two Hufflepuffs staring at him did he stop. His hands returned to his hair and flattened it again, reminding himself that it was safer to tease the possibility in his mind. It was easier to stay on the outskirts.

Malfoy was reading a new book today. Albus could see the pages of it on his lap, hidden from the professor’s view by the wooden table. He also watched as the boy’s fingers twitched towards the cigarette packet in his trouser pocket. Maybe the reading quelled his addiction, even for just a second.

“Ah, Miss Weasley...”

“I’m sorry sir, I had to talk to Professor Childray. Something about an extra NEWT.”

“Very well. Please take a seat.”

Albus had expected to hear the thump of books upon the table, the exasperated sigh of his cousin as she flounced across the room and threw herself dramatically in to the seat next to him. There were no free places, aside from the one next to him and the one next to Malfoy, and Albus suspected that the Head Girl would rather sit next to her anti-social cousin rather than the boy that represented all she despised.

He was wrong.

Rose had chosen to sit next to Scorpius Malfoy, of all people. His fellow classmates would notice, obviously, and the action would not go unobserved by the school population. Fred and Roxanne would tease her, and Lily would shudder and whisper insults in her annoyingly high-pitched voice. Dominique would simply glance moodily at her over-ambitious cousin, her chin tilted at a too-high angle to be natural. Albus remembered all the times they had laughed and joked about the boy, about what his family had believed in, when their words had stopped being jovial and became darker, more menacing.

The complexity of the situation frustrated him, and when the professor began talking, Albus struggled to understand what he was saying. He felt he should have looked closer; frozen time and stepped into the scene, observing the way Rose’s eyes fell on the blonde man, the movement of her lips or her hands. He should have been able to decipher Malfoy’s reaction. He felt silly for imagining the scene between himself and some beautiful girl, where he was handsome and charming, instead of watching, observing. He would have been able to find answers in their eyes.

Malfoy must be the object of some desire, some quality, that she wanted or needed to possess. 

Rose had chosen to sit next to Scorpius Malfoy. Dominique had chosen to fall in love with him. When had Malfoy suddenly become an object of fascination? Why had his cousins decided that he was worth their time and effort? Why did he, who had spent so many years and wasted so much energy on understanding the boy, feel as if he was simply a follower of this new fad, and not the initiator? He almost felt pity for them; that it had taken them so long to discover Scorpius, but his own strange swoop of possessiveness had repulsed him. If belonged to anyone, it was Elodie.

There was something perfect about Scorpius and Elodie as a couple. When they were near each other, there was a sense of electricity in the air. And Albus was quietly convinced that they would combust, and the resulting blaze would either destroy them entirely, or make them stronger. One thing that Albus was certain of, was that neither of them would find an adequate replacement for the other. And so they walked around as two halves, and the effect was that of an amputee – the sickening sense of something missing that should be there.

And she looked beautiful today.

 

 

“Ah, Miss Weasley...”

“I’m sorry sir, I had to talk to Professor Childray. Something about an extra NEWT.”

“Very well. Please take a seat.”

The words seemed muffled through Scorpius Malfoy’s ears as he finished the last few pages of his chapter. Only when he heard the soft cough of a seasoned attention seeker and the hurried whispers of his classmates did he close the book and place it carefully on the table. Almost immediately he felt a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the need for a cigarette smothered his senses; the words and sentences presented a better remedy than the spells Elodie had made him use.

“Excuse me?”

Scorpius turned to acknowledge her. The girl’s polished perfection seemed too pronounced in the underground room, full of dark corners and deathly poisons. It seemed too fake, too manufactured, from the neatness of her straightened collar to the precise positioning of her auburn curls. She was similar to her cousin in some ways: their face shape was alike, they had the same smattering of freckles, her meticulous appearance. He could also highlight the differences: the cool exterior of someone who thought themselves superior to you, the soft, pink hands of the over-pampered. His lip curled.

“May I sit here?”

He fought the temptation to smirk at the blush that covered her cheeks. She felt embarrassed, and her apathetic facade suddenly seemed pointless. He could just picture her dropping all her books to the floor, tucking her hair behind her ear as she struggled to control herself, her words coming out in a strained mumble.

He fought the urge to lash out at her and so, instead, he nodded slowly.

She moved around the table and placed her books on the table. He picked up the book again, found his current page. He tried to read, but instead he looked over the top of the novel to gaze, first questioningly at Rose Weasley, then longingly at Elodie, who was defiantly staring at the blackboard.

“Right, let’s begin.”


	9. IX

The entrance hall was dark, and there was rain lashing against the windows. Rose Weasley had always hated the rain, and the cold it brought with it. Things were always better doused in a golden gleam of sunshine, or a soft covering of purest white snow. The cold and the dark heralded dangers and monsters and secrets, and she did not like that.

The Quidditch match had been a failure. The Gryffindor team had tried hard, swerving and swooping through the pounding rain, blind but for the green blurs that represented the other team. The entire Gryffindor house had poured out into the stands to watch the match, but their cheers were in vain. Albus had caught the snitch within half an hour and the game had finished. She clapped graciously, as always, as her friends beside her muttered their disappointment and plotted their revenge.

In order to cheer up her fellow housemates, Rose had proposed the idea of party, and the others had nodded their approval. She had gone with a small group to the kitchens, to find food and to talk to the house elves.

And so now, her arms laden with pumpkin pasties and her friends surrounding her, Rose’s eyes travelled from the rain at the windows to the staircase that led down to the dungeons.

“Rose, come on... it’ll get cold!”

She had only ever entered the grand, lavishly decorated common room a few times, always reluctantly, and always with someone by her side. She would never admit it to anyone - and the secret would remained locked in a chest, along with her desire to best Dominique, and an overwhelming fear of failure - but the place scared her. The people scared her.

Rose had last visited the common room on the night of the welcoming feast, clutching Oscar at her side, flashing a charming smile to all corners of the dark room. She could hear the whispers, see the slight smirks. Only the first years looked at her with any respect, but they were nervous and alone and had no one else to guide them.

Albus hadn’t been there. She took some offence at that. Elodie Desmarais was though, with her two friends (she couldn’t remember their names), elegant and graceful on a green leather sofa. They weren’t even listening, just whispering silently to each other.

Scorpius Malfoy had been sitting at the back, clutching a French dictionary and flicking through it absentmindedly, scribbling notes here and there. She had searched for him in the crowd, trying to see what Dominique had seen in him, and she found it: that dark mysteriousness, the elusive Scorpius Malfoy. He had always been something undefined for Rose, but for her cousin, it was different. Dominique had used him in some bizarre vendetta against her family: a sign of rebellion. She had wanted the controversy surrounding his surname rather than him. The appeal of his devastating history had thrilled her.

And Rose wanted to feel that - she wanted to be excited and aroused and exhilarated by the idea of him, to see the world, vast and terrifying, with just a hint of violence. She wanted to indulge in the shadows, in the darkness - and see what it was like, what Dominique had touched, saw, smelt, heard and tasted. She wanted to sense something new.

She was faced with a choice between light and dark, really. She could stay out here in the bright lights with her golden friends, or she could travel deeper into the building in pursuit of him. It was easy to become a Malfoy fugitive; she wanted to follow after him into those dark spaces of his for no other reason that she wanted to feel lost on the dark. She wanted to come back into the light, and see Oscar in a more glorious light than ever before. The light would only warm her when she had touched the dark.

It was this compulsion that made Rose turn and call out to her friends.

"I'll be back later!"

And she disappeared into the shadows.

 

 

_It was a dark and stormy night._

The quill had jittered across the parchment; great sporadic loops and lines created by the steady pulse of music that had made the walls shake and the furniture vibrate. It was often accompanied by the occasional scream of delight or of laughter. The sounds of fun and fraternisation seemed to permeate Albus Potter’s brain until he could no longer think straight.

It had first struck him during the Quidditch match - the sudden, fervent need to write and write. He had been stranded in the fog, the rain battering and beating down on him, and all he wanted to do was describe the whole scene: the windswept faces of the players, the ding of the bell, the sound of the balls as they went speeding passed. As his fingers closed around the struggling snitch, he had contrived some description of its fragile wings and curved golden body that was fairly coherent.

Albus looked at his writing again, and sighed in frustration. The single sentence had exhausted him, and its banality made him want to weep. He could picture the scene so clearly, he had experienced it - he just wanted others to understand and know what he was seeing, what was going on inside his head... but he couldn’t write it down, or describe it to justice. He had been too satisfied with the mental image.

"Yeah! She's downstairs. Just turned up."

And just like that, his classmates had invaded his private sanctuary. Albus shoved the pieces of parchment unceremoniously under his pillow and twitched the curtains of his four poster closed. Although they had clapped him on the back and shouted his name in the stands, the illusion had quickly lapsed into the quiet recognition with which they usually acknowledged him. Now, they would just ask why he was not at the party, and he would have to come up with some mediocre excuse.

"I don't know why she'd come down here, especially after they lost."

"She probably thinks it's her duty as Head Girl, to congratulate the winning team."

Albus exhaled quickly. Rose.

"Frigid bitch."

“Farlane keeps saying her cousin’s coming too.”

“The Veela one? The things I read about her in the girls’ bathrooms...”

A sense of shame and embarrassment squirmed within Albus, as he sat motionless on his bed, quill still in hand. He couldn’t stand the connection he had with his cousins or his immediate family, and he hated the way, at certain moments, his head and heart decided he needed to respect it. Albus and Rose and Dominique were joined, forever, by blood - the sticky mess would bind them forever, and compromise seemed impossible.

Dominique would be here for sex, for some dark thrill that excited her and could only be satisfied by the touch of Scorpius Malfoy - that, or to be gawked at by other boys in some hope of inciting jealously.

Rose was here, simply beleaguered by ideas above her station. She seemed to believe that she hadn’t changed anything, and that nobody had noticed when she had sat down next to Malfoy in that potions lesson. It had been a moment of personal choice – one that had teetered between reality and potential, until she had made her decision.

If Rose was here, it was a way to insert herself once more into Scorpius’ life. Albus supposed that she, as Head Girl, should have a personal interest and relationship with everyone in the school - so Scorpius’ was a life she had always felt as though she were meant to be in.

Albus wondered whether their meeting - their probable association, whether friendship or something more - was because of some predetermined future, the result of destiny and the fixed nature of the cosmos. He remembered the words his uncle had said to Rose at King’s Cross, the very first time they got on the Hogwarts Express - the remark may have had some profound effect on her, may have identified Scorpius as something else to best, something to conquer.

“She asked for Potter too.”

There was silence as the boy realised that Albus was most probably hiding behind the drawn curtains of his four poster bed. Muttering ensued as his roommate reprimanded the boy for his mistake. Albus held his breath.

There was a clink of glasses, and the sound of pouring liquid. Someone hiccupped. The door opened and the two roommates left the room. Silence resumed, and Albus pulled the parchment again from below his pillow. He crossed out the previous sentence, and started again.

_Fate is the endless chain of causation, whereby things are; the reason or formula by which the world goes on._ [1]

Albus shook his head. He was being stupid, and his cousin was being irrational. If the last few weeks had taught him anything, it was that there is no such thing as fate, but rather opportunities that collide with us at either the perfect or worst possible moment.

 

 

“Congratulations on the win,” she said.

“Thank you,” he replied.

Elodie Desmarais watched as his eyes traced her face, finally resting on her lips.

“You’re very good-looking,” Nott said, his voice dangerously close to her ear. His muscular bulk seemed to block out the noise of the celebrations, and Elodie could feel the cold wall pressing into her back.

“Thank you,” she replied, almost coolly. She could see the ghostly pale faces of Madeleine and Genevieve from over the boy’s shoulder - their slightly cocked eyebrows, the parted lips. Genevieve once made a passing comment about Samuel Nott; how she appreciated his upper body or his money or his country estate. Madeleine had also nodded her approval and so Elodie felt the need to be nice to him, or at least vaguely attentive. It would give them something to talk about besides her relationship with Scorpius and the girls' relationship with their Gringotts’ vault. 

“You’re beautiful.”

Elodie took a moment to bask in the compliment, and in the heat of his body so close to hers. It had always been difficult for Elodie to accept praise - her parents had never lavished her with kind words - and Nott’s praise made me her stomach twist uncomfortably.

She had become obsessed with the vision of herself reflected in Scorpius' eyes. Elodie had never deemed herself wholly perfect - she persuaded herself to be more warm, more caring, someone who could look after Scorpius as well as love him - and so the spectacle she saw when he looked at her was alien and unexpected: some deity that could do no wrong and put him in the right.

At times of crisis, when he would assure her that she was doing the right thing, she would doubt him, unsure of whether he knew the real her. She knew it was inherently selfish, of course, because she knew every inch of him and loved each inch so entirely.

Elodie was sometimes empowered by the fact - her mother had told her that the one who cared least in the relationship held the most power - and on days when Elodie pretended to care less than she did, she would hang on to the idea as an excuse.

“Are you going to say anything?” Nott said, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck.

“Nothing springs to mind,” she retorted.

“And what would you say if I kissed you?” Samuel continued. Elodie stayed silent, instead moving her hand to Nott’s forearm. He moved closer towards her, and she could feel his proximity suffocating her.

“You’d have to ask my boyfriend about that.” It was a safe card to play, an easy way out of an awkward situation. She wasn’t surprised that the boy had forgotten about Scorpius and their apparently on-going relationship. Sometimes she forgot herself.

_“I can’t believe she came.”_

The room had started to buzz, not because of the music or the firewhiskey, but gossip. People were talking. The room was soon alight with scandal, some ridiculous calumny that targeted some poor person who had worn or said the wrong thing or looked a certain way.

_“And that skirt...”_

And in a brief moment of overwhelming self-consciousness, Elodie turned to look around at the people surrounding her - whether they were looking at her, laughing and gawking and mocking. She had wondered whether they were talking about her and Nott, or her and Scorpius, or just her... but people were turning to the common room entrance and she realised that there had to be more exciting things to talk about. The feeling subsided as quickly as it had started.

_“At least she brought food!”_

“Malfoy?” Nott was still standing beside her.

And although Elodie had always sheltered herself behind the pretence of her relationship with Scorpius, she knew it was the genuine reason for her actions. She cared about him too much to see him crushed by the thought that Elodie had apparently moved on. She knew the sight of her and Nott together would hurt him terribly. She also hated and resented him, for bringing about this change within her, when she knew the way he thought about her.

It just terrified her, the prospect of what yet another disappointment would do to Scorpius. She doubted whether Scorpius would be able to stand it, whether the stress and pressure of his situation would finally collapse on him. Elodie smirked slightly at the thought, at the sight of Scorpius falling apart without her - the image gave her that strange addictive pleasure that had fuelled their encounters over the summer - but almost immediately she felt guilty.

“Well then... would you like to dance with me?”

The offer seemed so outstandingly formal that Elodie almost laughed. She looked over at the mass of people gyrating in the centre of the common room, at the heady heat that would stifle her; Nott would obviously take the opportunity to touch her, to feel her cold body next to his - but all she could picture was some ceremonial ball with long gowns and champagne flutes, with Scorpius standing beside her in immaculate dress robes and a soft smile.

Elodie remembered: he had said something witty, and she had smiled.

“What are you smirking about?”

“Just thinking,” she replied.

“Good things, I hope.”

“No,” Elodie said, her voice quiet and she glanced up at the boy from under her eyelashes, “very bad things.”

She left him then, her hands shaking slightly and her breaths shallow. She knew what she was doing – not flirting, not acting coy, not conjuring romance. She was running away, as fast as she could. Scorpius looked at her from every corner, caught up with her every step, and even grinned with approval at the commencement of another game, even as he scowled at the thought of someone else playing with her.

 

 

“Rose?”

She moved in a whirl of red curls and floral perfume, a beaming smile already etched on her freckled features.

“What are you doing here?” Albus asked.

“I didn’t actually want to talk to you.”

He watched her carefully. Rose was not here to see him, and Albus felt no disappointment. He guessed that Rose would be here out of some sense of connection to Malfoy, bonded together by what her parents and uncle had done for his father during the War, and what Ron had said on the station all those years ago.

“Malfoy?”

She smiled appreciatively. “You have been doing your homework.”

“People know, Rose. People have realised. They’re laughing at you.”

Her strange obsession with the Slytherins was aberrant, incomprehensible and so sudden that Albus had supposed that Rose had been oblivious to the repercussions. He had presumed that his cousin had not considered what the ramifications of her actions may be, assuming, as she so frequently did, that she could disregard them with a wave of her hand and a mention of her surname. Rose must know that people were, for possibly the first time in her life, laughing at her, and that venturing into the dark belly of the beast would not help matters.

She, now, would understand what it would be like to be an object of derision, to be constantly undermined. Rose had always cared so desperately about what people thought of her, that Albus thought she would have balked, retreated, when she discovered that she was being ridiculed.

But she must have risen above it. It was that strong will of Rose’s that prevented her from accepting any feeling, any action that forced her to face those parts of herself that didn’t fit into the perfect image she strove towards everyday.

“Let them,” she replied darkly.

And then - almost suddenly - she beamed brightly.

“I think we should get a drink,” she said.

They each grabbed a butterbeer and moved to a sofa in the corner of the room, people moving aside to let them pass. Albus watched as Rose glanced at the students surrounding them, searching for the elusive blond boy she was so desperate to see. Through the throngs of Slytherins, girls could be heard gossiping and could be seen staring.

“So, how have you been?”

She suddenly looked and sounded sincere, but then that was Rose all over. Albus wondered about how many of her friends and teachers believed that she was this divine being constantly, kind and generous and caring, how many of them she had fooled with her compliments and careful flattery. Albus wondered how many of them knew that she possessed this callous quality that allowed her to conduct these elaborate schemes with little empathy and less mercy.

He remembered her eyes, blue and shining, as she watched the bonfire in the Burrow’s orchard, as she casually threw his books into the flames. He remembered her lips, stretched in a wide grin, as she talked and laughed about her friends behind their backs. He remembered her expression as she fought for her goals and laid the foundations of her future no matter what the cost. This other side to her seemed so reckless, so ill controlled, something darker and more unpredictable. That was probably what made her such a laudable opponent.

He didn’t begrudge his cousin an inner life; if anything, it made her more fascinating as a character, something to write about. And, just as it had struck him so suddenly in the middle of the Quidditch game, he felt the vehement compulsion to write. He admired her pale skin in the gloomy light of the dungeon room, and the shadows that flickered across her face.

One day, he knew - he knew beyond all logic and without a shred of doubt - he would write about it. He would write about all of them; Rose, Scorpius, Elodie, even Dominique. He would find a way to put every nuance of their lives in writing, but only when he had learnt the words to that story, and only when he could forge it into a narrative.

“I’m well,” he began. “I think that...”

“I’m going to frank with you, Albus, because I know there’s no-one that will listen to you.”

The bottle slipped between his sweaty palms. Albus felt a surprising flush of anger that was disproportionate to her words. He was forced to swallow his anger and offer her a stiff nod - but he secretly fumed at the cavalier way she mocked him. He was always so achingly aware of his loneliness.

“I think you know that Dominique’s having some sort of sordid affair with the boy.”

Albus stared at her. She couldn’t possibly know. The only people who knew were Scorpius, Dominique and himself - and there was no way that his beautiful cousin had confided in Rose.

“How did you...”

“You should be more careful, Albus,” she replied sharply, “I don’t know whether Scorpius would appreciate it if he knew that you were telling all your little friends about him and our cousin, would he?”

“I don’t...”

“Have little friends, I know,” she said, as she smiled sardonically at him, “but you never know who is listening.”

He watched her as she took a sip of her butterbeer.

“So Dominique’s little indiscretion... I want to know what all the fuss is about, whether he was worth it. I want to know whether it will ever, somehow, get back to me. I want to know whether she’s told him anything about me, about us... you know what she’s like.”

“Why are you doing this?”

A pause. Rose stared down at the ground. “I don’t want it to ruin me.”

Rose was lying. He could tell - it was plastered over her porcelain features and in her slightly shaking voice. She was doing this for some other reason, something that went deeper than merely the protection of her social standing.

If she had known about the affair, about what Malfoy and Dominique were doing, then surely this was just Rose’s way of triumphing over her once again. Scorpius Malfoy was something Dominique longed for - and Rose was, apparently, determined to be the one that took him away from her.

Rose would not want people to know that her coquettish nymphette of a cousin even had a chance of bettering her. She did want the fact that she cared so deeply about her cousin’s actions to be public knowledge. She had always positively embraced the challenge, however. Albus doubted that she considered anyone - not even Oscar - her equal, but Dominique, perhaps, was the most suitable contender.

“All right,” he answered simply.

They sat in silence for too long, Rose still searching the crowd for a sign of Malfoy. Even Albus looked around for him. He saw Elodie perched elegantly on the edge of a chair, Samuel Nott whispering something into her ear. A couple of fourth years were openly pointing and jeering at Rose. A small boy set off some fireworks, and the room was suddenly alight. But there was no Scorpius.

Albus didn’t know what to say - he never did - and so rose from the sofa, with all intent of returning to his four-poster and scribbling down this entire confrontation.

Her hand shot out and stopped him.

“If he talks to you, don’t mention me.”

“What?”

“I will tell your new best friend that you’ve been sharing all his secrets with me - that you’re the reason I know about him and Dominique,” she said hurriedly. Her eyes were darker now, and her grip on his arm tightened. “I will tell him that you’re inappropriately infatuated with his girlfriend. Maybe... maybe I... what if I tell him that you’re merely talking to him in a misguided attempt to help the Aurors find his father? What if I told him that you’re obsessed with him?”

“I don’t want that.”

“Don’t tell him I’m doing this. Don’t talk to him about me.”

“Or?”

She smiled. “You’ll know when it happens.”

 

 

The room was quiet. Scorpius slouched across the room, his foot knocking empty butterbeer bottles, his eyes taking in the celebratory banner and the indoor fireworks still whirling weakly. He had arrived back too late for the festivities, and the sun had just reached the treetops of the Forbidden Forest on his walk back from Hogsmeade. A few stragglers, lounging on the sofas, snored loudly. A couple kissed, entwined in a single armchair. 

He stood, briefly, in front of the old dusty mirror that hung above the fireplace, staring at his reflection, peering at his bloodshot eyes, the greyish pallor of his skin. He was convinced the he was turning into vapour before his own eyes. But, of course, he was not that lucky.

Despite his still body, his mind raced backwards in time, through the most terrifying, distressing moments of his life. His parents, shouting at each other while he hid behind an antique armchair; a sixth year pulling at his hair and punching him in the gut, spitting out broken teeth; his mother’s first attack, his father’s desertion, and Elodie’s rejection. He constantly watched a parade of his life’s failures.

And at night, after tossing and turning, his mind filled with images of women with long, sweeping blonde hair he felt his thoughts passing to that final, deepest pain; the possibility of his mother’s death.

Scorpius knew that it was almost a year - a whole year since his father had disappeared, leaving his mother alone and devastated, and Scorpius obstinately silent. The affection and happiness had seemed to freeze to with the coming snows, and turned to cold indifference, and then thaw with the spring warmth and evaporate completely. 

Even as he comforted her, he memorized his mother's pain. He memorized the sloping, defeated shoulders and the way she half-buried her face so he would not be able to see it's splotchy, tearful redness. Scorpius would remember it, and try and use it, to fuel his anger against his father.

And he had seen that same pain today, but ten-fold, and etched into her skin so deeply that there was no chance of it leaving. His mother had looked so small and skeletal in her hospital bed, with only a vestige of her old beauty to make her recognisable. A cold, heavy feeling had settled in his stomach like lead, and it threatened to stay, weighing him down.

The soft, susurrus sounds of the hospital had bustled around him - the quiet bubbling of medical potions, the swish of a wand - but no whisper of well-wishers, no footsteps of a frantic husband. Scorpius had pressed a hand to her forehead, and his fingers almost stuck to the cold sweat that decorated her forehead and drenched the sheets around her. His mother was cold and his hand unfeasibly warm - but the heat had been contraband, had been smuggled from the fire of Hogwarts and hoarded against the stormy weather and the cold, cruel conditions that had faced him. 

She had been alone, the healer had said, when someone had found her. There had been another attack, worse than before, and nobody had been there with her. Scorpius had given the healer his aunt’s name and address, convincing the bespectacled man that Daphne cared, that Daphne knew what was going on. He had bent to kiss his mother’s forehead, the salty sweat stinging at his lips, and headed back to school.

Looking around the room once again, Scorpius moved to one of the sofas and pulled out his book. It was too late to go to bed - and even if he did, pictures of his mother and strange, ethereal beauties would just haunt him, preventing him from sleep. It was too early to go to breakfast. He flicked to the right page.

He briefly wondered whether anyone had realised that he wasn’t there. He wondered whether anyone had missed him.


End file.
